What Our Team Canada and Team USA Rosters for the 2026 Olympics Look Like Right Now

·58 min·5 clips

Why Hockey Canada must include 19-year-old Connor Bedard and 20-year-old Macklin Celebrini in their Olympic roster.

Best-on-best hockey is finally back. Dimitri Filipovich and Thomas Dranz build the Olympic roster exercise around the return of regular best-on-best hockey. Four Nations gave players a preview and gave national programs new roster problems to chew on. The mood is eager, but the conversation stays practical. They use the first six weeks of the season as evidence, separating what looks real from what still feels like projection. Canada carries most of the weight in this excerpt. The hosts keep coming back to the hole Four Nations exposed: Hockey Canada did not have an American-style big, rangy offensive forward in the Matt Boldy mold. That type matters here. Fantilli, Byfield, Holloway, and Gunther all make sense in that prototype and skill-set conversation, but none of them completely closes the argument. Bedard is the harder problem. He has played well enough that Canada may have to make room for him even if he complicates the cleanest roster plan. Anthony Sorelli enters the build because his connector game could fit neatly around the rest of the group. Horvat is the painful cut. His speed, faceoff value, attacking style, calm under pressure, and comfort in different lineup jobs make him tough to leave out. Shifley lands in the honorable-mention tier. Gunther is in the same uncomfortable pocket: the shot-making and size fit, but the hosts think Canada can probably find those traits elsewhere, especially the shooting. The fun is in the fine print. This is not a star ranking. It is a debate about prototypes, role flexibility, and what a short tournament actually asks from each forward. The excerpt closes with more Olympic talk coming between now and February, with the regular Sunday format waiting behind it.

As heard by us

A sharp roster debate that turns Olympic speculation into practical team-building logic.

Dimitri Filipovich and Thomas Drance use Olympic roster talk to work through what the first six weeks have clarified, and where the last hard cuts still sit for Team Canada and Team USA.

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Want a sharp read on the Olympic roster fight before it hardens?

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