The return of NHLers at the 2026 Olympic men’s hockey tournament after a 12-year absence is justifiably generating a lot of excitement. Still, it’s good to remember that there are still prospective Olympic difference-makers who earn their living in top European leagues.
We got a vivid reminder of this at the first “NHL Olympics” in Nagano, Japan in 1998. The Czechs confounded the experts by winning the gold medal with a roster featuring seven non-NHLers. Five came from their domestic league (forwards Josef Beranek, Jiri Dopita, Milan Hejduk, and David Moravec and goalie Roman Cechmanek), one from Finland (forward Jan Caloun), and one from Sweden (forward Pavel Patera).
Obviously, over the decades, the balance of power has shifted further toward the NHL. However, unexpected heroes are a staple of Olympic hockey lore. So let’s spotlight seven experienced players who currently suit up in Europe and could make headlines in Milan, Italy in February.
Roman Cervenka (CZE)
When Roman Cervenka played his 100th IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship game in Herning, Denmark, back in May, it wasn’t some mere formality. The 39-year-old Czech captain notched a hat trick in an 8-1 rout of Kazakhstan. And “Cervus” finished third in tournament scoring with 14 points, surpassing Canadian superstars Nathan MacKinnon (13 points) and Sidney Crosby (12 points), both of whom also played eight games.
Cervenka famously led his nation to WM gold on home ice the year before in Prague. Heading into his fifth Olympics, he remains a canny, heads-up offensive threat. His chemistry with Boston Bruins superstar David Pastrnak and HC Dynamo Pardubice teammate Lukas Sedlak can’t be denied.
Nick Olesen (DEN)
To kick off the 2025-26 Tipsport Extraliga season, Nick Olesen carried over the momentum from his all-star performance (5+7=12) at the 2025 Men’s Worlds, vying for the league lead in scoring with HC Motor Ceske Budejovice. On home ice in Herning in May, the savvy Frederikshavn-born forward’s unquestioned highlight was scoring the last-minute winner against Canada in a 2-1 quarter-final upset.
Given the stacked Canadian roster, this was clearly one of international hockey’s all-time greatest shockers. Only two Olympic upsets might rank higher: the U.S.’s 1980 “Miracle on Ice” victory over the Soviet Union in Lake Placid and Belarus’s 2002 elimination of Sweden in the Salt Lake City quarter-finals. So Olesen has proved he can deliver under pressure – perhaps he can do it again for Denmark on an even bigger stage.
Mikko Lehtonen (FIN)
Finland will defend its historic 2022 Olympic title with a very different-looking roster than in Beijing. However, even though Dallas Stars superstar Miro Heiskanen will likely quarterback coach Antti Pennanen’s power play, a veteran from 2022 could also play an important role in sparking offence from the blue line.
Mikko Lehtonen was both an Olympic and World Championship all-star in 2022, and he wore the “C” (3+5=8) for Suomi at the 2025 Men’s Worlds. Most recently a two-time Swiss NL champion (2024, 2025) and Champions Hockey League winner (2025) with ZSC Lions, the 31-year-old from Turku remains a world-class puck-mover.
Dominik Kahun (GER)
Did you know that Dominik Kahun is Germany’s all-time leading Men’s Worlds scorer with 40 points? The nifty ace bounced back from an injury-marred 2024-25 Swiss NL regular season to impress as a point-per-game player in Herning.
Kahun, 30, brings valuable experience heading into his third Olympics. The ex-NHLer was a member of the 2018 silver medal-winning squad in PyeongChang, South Korea. A shootout specialist, Kahun scored the third and final goal on Norway’s Lars Haugen in the group finale that year to vault Germany into the playoffs with a 2-1 win. Expect this HC Lausanne forward to provide important secondary scoring behind the likes of Leon Draisaitl and Tim Stutzle.
Tomas Tatar (SVK)
With 927 career NHL games dating back to 2010-11, Tomas Tatar only just returned to the European pro circuit this season. The 34-year-old Slovak captain is a six-time NHL 20-goal scorer gearing up for his first Olympics since Sochi, and he can still produce offence, based on his early results as an assistant captain with Switzerland’s EV Zug.
Especially in light of the huge parade that welcomed the 2022 Olympic bronze medal-winning Slovak team in Bratislava, Tatar will be highly motivated to surprise everyone by medaling again. His lone previous IIHF medal was silver from the 2012 World Championship in Helsinki.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (FRA)
At age 40, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare is amazingly set to participate in his first Olympics ever. And even if the hard-working, versatile French captain is unlikely to taste victory in a tough preliminary round group with Canada, Czechia, and Switzerland, he brings some definite savoir-faire. In addition to 700 NHL regular season games (tops among all Frenchmen), Bellemare marched to two Stanley Cup finals in 2018 with the Vegas Golden Knights and 2022 with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
If the French achieve a miraculous upset in their Milan playoff game, this HC Ajoie attacker’s ability to steady the ship will be integral.
Leonardo Genoni (SUI)
Leonardo Genoni isn’t among the eight Swiss goalies who have appeared in the NHL, including current Vegas netminder Akira Schmid. However, Genoni is well-established among the best to ever don the pads in Europe. At 38, the seven-time Swiss champion seems ageless with his athletic butterfly style.
Genoni has backstopped Switzerland to three of its four World Championship silver medals (2018, 2024, 2025). The EV Zug starter delivered an MVP performance last year with four shutouts and just seven goals allowed. Genoni’s shutout streak of 243:27 over his last five games eclipsed the previous modern-day record of 238:05 established by Finland’s Pekka Rinne (2015).
While Genoni and Sidney Crosby were both born in the same month (August 1987), the Olympic expectations for the former are naturally lower than for the latter. Still, helping the Swiss men reach the podium for the first time since 1948’s bronze would cement the netminder’s legend.