What would Olympic rosters look like with soccer’s age-eligibility rules?

The NHL and the NBA are the only major pro sports leagues that allow all their players to participate in the Olympics. Okay, maybe they don’t do it every time, but when they do, every player can go. Well, except Russia and Belarus, but that’s a different situation. You get my point!

What that does is allow countries to play to their absolute strengths and give fans true best-on-best competition that isn’t seen anywhere else. Sure, it can lead to some dominance (Canada in hockey, the United States in basketball), but seeing the best players support their countries is entertaining, and it gives us some dream player combinations that we wouldn’t see anywhere else.

However, there is one other sport that only partially commits to sending players to the Olympics: soccer. Due to not wanting to retread with the World Cup, along with the Olympics often occurring at the same time as the Euros and other continental tournaments, men’s soccer in the Olympics only allows three players over the age of 23 to participate in the tournament. Otherwise, the tournament has a U23 age restriction.

Last week, Jeff Marek and Greg Wyshynski discussed the idea of a U24 tournament on The Sheet, similar to what soccer does, and it piqued my curiosity: what would rosters look like in this scenario? Which players would countries use their overage slots on, and how would they fill out the rest of their rosters?

Let’s pretend the NHL has decided it wants the World Cup of Hockey to be the sole place of best-on-best hockey and instead has the Olympics follow the same rules as men’s soccer. Let’s take a look at what the rosters for the big five countries (Canada, United States, Sweden, Finland and Czechia) would look like under this format.

Just to clarify, these are the rules I’ve set for the rosters:

1. All players must be under the age of 23 as of July 1, 2025. The reason for that specific date is because a) it’s the the start of the NHL calendar, so it flows well with the hockey season, and b) men’s soccer’s cut-off date is Jan. 1 of the Olympic year, so it makes sense to move the date six months back for a tournament that is five to six months sooner on the calendar.
2. Each country is permitted three players on the roster who are older than the set age restriction. They can play any position.
3. Teams must bring 14 forwards, eight defensemen, and three goalies.
4. Current injuries are ignored in this study, as I just wanted to explore what everyone’s best-case roster would look like.

With that out of the way, let’s first look at what overage players the five countries will bring.

Overage Player Selection

Country	Player 1	Player 2	Player 3
Canada	Connor McDavid	Nathan MacKinnon	Cale Makar
United States	Connor Hellebuyck	Quinn Hughes	Jack Eichel
Sweden	William Nylander	Rasmus Dahlin	Lucas Raymond
Finland	Aleksander Barkov	Miro Heiskanen	Mikko Rantanen
Czechia	David Pastrnak	Lukas Dostal	Martin Necas

– While Canada’s three selections are obvious, you can’t help but wonder if Hockey Canada would find some way to put Sidney Crosby on this roster. If so, which player misses the cut?

– One of the toughest choices was the third player for the United States. In most seasons, Auston Matthews is the obvious option, but he’s far too inconsistent in recent seasons to rely on when you can only take three overage players. While Matthew Tkachuk is another option, I went with Eichel.

– I originally selected Filip Gustavsson as Sweden’s third player over Raymond, but once I looked at other goaltending options vs. forward and defense, it seemed smarter to add another forward. Not to worry, another Minnesota Wild goaltender will man the crease instead.

– In a weird way, Barkov’s injury would have helped my decision for the three Finnish players. Their goaltending prospects are very slim, so including Juuse Saros would have improved them there, but I couldn’t in good conscience leave off Barkov, Heiskanen and Rantanen.

– The Czechs are the only other country besides the States to bring a goalie with their overage selections, and they’re going to need it. Their depth was already thin before the age limit came in, so he’d play a big role in their success if they could pull it off. Then again, the Czechs have pulled off upsets before.

– If the age limit was just one year older, teams might not have included any goalies in their overage selection, including the States with Hellebuyck. The likes of Jet Greaves, Spencer Knight, Devon Levi, Dustin Wolf, Dennis Hildeby, Joel Blomqvist and Jakub Dobes would have all been eligible with one more year on the age limit.

Now on to the full rosters:

Canada

Forwards
Macklin Celebrini	Connor McDavid	Nathan MacKinnon
Zach Benson	Connor Bedard	Dylan Guenther
Mason McTavish	Wyatt Johnston	Logan Stankoven
Beckett Sennecke	Adam Fantilli	Quinton Byfield
Shane Wright	Dawson Mercer
Defensemen		Goaltenders
Matthew Schaefer	Cale Makar	Sebastian Cossa
Owen Power	Brandt Clarke	Carter George
Denton Mateychuk	Zayne Parekh	Joshua Ravensbergen
Sam Dickinson	Olen Zellweger

Death, taxes and Canada bringing a loaded lineup to an international hockey tournament, no matter the circumstances. While they are a bit light on their left wing, most teams in this tournament would love to have a player like Benson, McTavish or Sennecke. Canada’s center depth is still incredible even without McDavid, as Bedard and Johnston could make the actual Olympic team next year and Fantilli probably has a place on the squad in future tournaments. There’s plenty of “energy” forwards Canada loves to shoehorn into the lineup, like Benson, Stankoven and Byfield, but they’re all here on merit.

Canada’s defense is still great too. While Power is the lone big body type that often finds its way onto these rosters, they have plenty of puck movers to generate offense, and with the group up front, they may run up the scoreboard before outmuscling opponents is required. Despite the goaltending crisis with Canada’s Olympic squad, they boast one of the better goalie trios in this roster, as Cossa, George and Ravensbergen are poised to be international heroes in the future.

United States

Forwards
Cutter Gauthier	Jack Eichel	Will Smith
Matthew Knies	Logan Cooley	Josh Doan
Jackson Blake	Matty Beniers	Matt Coronato
Ryan Leonard	Frank Nazar	Jimmy Snuggerud
	Gavin Brindley	Mackie Samoskevich
Defensemen		Goaltenders
Quinn Hughes	Jake Sanderson	Connor Hellebuyck
Lane Hutson	Brock Faber	Jacob Fowler
Luke Hughes	Seamus Casey	Trey Augustine
Zeev Buium	Sam Rinzel

While the United States’ forward group isn’t quite as deep as Canada’s, they still boast a lineup of NHL talent. Where the States has the advantage over Canada is on the back end, with possibly the best defense corps of the tournament. They bring in five defensemen with at least a full season of consistent NHL experience, something even Canada lacks. Having three potential Olympians in Quinn Hughes, Sanderson and Faber helps (with the latter two barely making the cutoff having turned 23 in July and August), and at least in this scenario, Hutson doesn’t have to switch countries to play in the Olympics. Hellebuyck will hold down the fort in net, but even if he falters, the States have two of the best goaltending prospects in the league in Fowler and Augustine behind him.

Sweden

Forwards
Lucas Raymond	Leo Carlsson	William Nylander
Victor Eklund	William Eklund	Jonathan Lekkerimaki
Fabian Lysell	Anton Frondell	Isak Rosen
Liam Ohgren	Noah Ostlund	Alex Holtz
Oskar Olausson	Felix Unger Sorum
Defensemen		Goaltenders
Rasmus Dahlin	Axel Sandin-Pellika	Jesper Wallstedt
Simon Edvinsson	Joel Nystrom	Carl Lindbom
Emil Andrae	Tom Willander	Erik Portillo
Elias Pettersson	Elias Salomonsson

Sweden is the first lineup where we have to start dipping into the prospect pool to fill out the depth. Sweden lucks out that they only need to use two overage spots to bring who will likely be their first line at the Olympics, as Carlsson is their first-line center regardless. They also bring some experience on their second line with William Eklund and Lekkerimaki, as well as most of their blueline, but the lower you get in the lineup, the more it’s made up of borderline NHLers. They’d have to hope they get the Wallstedt who’s dominating the NHL this season, because he would be their best bet at winning this tournament. At the very least, he made it an easy decision to pivot from Gustavsson to Raymond as their third over-ager.

Finland

Forwards
Jani Nyman	Aleksander Barkov	Mikko Rantanen
Ville Koivunen	Oliver Kapanen	Brad Lambert
Roby Jarventie	Aatu Raty	Lenni Hameenaho
Samuel Helenius	Aleksanteri Kaskimaki	Joakim Kemell
Konsta Helenius	Emil Hemming
Defensemen		Goaltenders
Miro Heiskanen	Ville Ottavainen	Leevi Merilainen
Jesse Pulkkinen	Aleksi Heimosalmi	Niklas Kokko
Lasse Boelius	Kasper Kulonummi	Kim Saarinen
Emil Pieniniemi	Veeti Vaisanen

Finland is the first team to get hit hard by the U23 rules, as their talent pool drops off significantly beyond their three overage players. The Finns are very limited in terms of players with NHL experience in Samuel Helenius, Lambert, Kapanen, Kaskimaki, Kemell, Koivunen, Nyman, Ottavainen and Raty, with most of these players having minimal experience at that. Even in net, Merilainen is only in his first full season as a backup for the Ottawa Senators. With NHLers, the Finns aren’t the best team, but they can hold their own against the best countries. You’d hope they can recapture that energy with this group, but they’ll be outclassed by a much larger margin compared to Canada, the United States and Sweden.

Czechia

Forwards
Jiri Kulich	Martin Necas	David Pastrnak
Eduard Sale	Ivan Ivan	Vaclav Nestrasil
Vojtech Cihar	Matyas Sapovaliv	Ondrej Kos
Adam Benak	Jiri Felcman	Ondrej Becher
Jakub Brabenec	Adam Jecho
Defensemen		Goaltenders
Radim Mrtka	David Jiricek	Lukas Dostal
Jiri Tichacek	David Spacek	Michael Hrabal
Jakub Dvorak	Adam Jiricek	Tomas Suchanek
Max Psenicka	Dominik Badinka

If you thought Finland had it bad, the Czechs struggle to ice a lineup of NHLers even when every player is at their disposal. When limited to U23 players, they only have three non-overage players with experience in the NHL: Ivan, Kulich and David Jiricek. Otherwise, they’re dipping into prospect pools to get a lineup together, and while they have a couple interesting names like Cihar, Mrtka and Sale, this group doesn’t compare to Canada, USA or Sweden. That said, it’s this age group of Czechs who have caused plenty of upsets at the World Juniors and have medaled in three consecutive tournaments. Bringing that mindset to this Olympic tournament would be their best chance at winning, as there’s only so much Dostal, Necas and Pastrnak can do on their own.

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This was a fun thought experiment to see what Olympic rosters would look like under the Olympic men’s soccer rules, but the end result is what drifts it away from the same intrigue as men’s soccer. Since men’s soccer has introduced an age restriction, it’s opened up the possibility of countries who wouldn’t win a World Cup like Nigeria, Cameroon and Mexico to win Olympic gold, and created more intrigue as a result.

For hockey, the usual parity between each country not only still exists, it actually has a greater disparity, as Canada and the United States far outclass the rest of the tournament, and Sweden also would be a tough out. While Canada usually has success at the Olympics, this format would give them that by an overwhelming amount, and ultimately ruin what makes Olympic hockey so entertaining.

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