Sweden’s Olympic gold hopes slim as injury list grows
With Russia not participating in the upcoming Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, Sweden would’ve been considered the third favorite for men’s hockey gold behind the big two of Canada and the United States. But as we get closer to the Opening Ceremony in Milan, key Swedish players have been dropping out with injury.
Swedish head coach Sam Hallam revealed on Tuesday that Anaheim Ducks forward Leo Carlsson and Minnesota Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin are unlikely to play in the 2026 Winter Olympics due to injury. Carlsson projected as a top-six center for Sweden, while Brodin would’ve been an important piece of a strong blueline. Throw in the uncertain statuses of forwards William Nylander, Gabriel Landeskog, and Joel Eriksson Ek, along with defensemen Victor Hedman and Erik Karlsson, and Team Sweden could be a severely compromised version of themselves when the Olympics rolls around.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Steve Peters discussed how Sweden’s injuries, particularly Carlsson’s, will hurt their team.
Steve Peters: When you look at Sweden and Finland, who are trying to catch up to and compete against Team U.S.A. and Team Canada, I think they’re next up but they have to play perfectly and they need all of their weapons to be able to compete against the top teams in the world. Leo Carlsson, he’s going to do everything right for that club. He’s going to be the guy that drives your offense, he’s going to be the big center-ice presence for that team. I think this is one of those injuries, where they’re not Canada, they’re not the U.S., who can have that next-man-up mentality and they are deep enough to maybe field a squad and a half. That’s not the case here. So I do think this is one of those blows that is going to be very devestating to Team Sweden.
Tyler Yaremchuk: This is heaping high praise on Leo Carlsson, but it’s right up there in terms of impact on the team with (Aleksander) Barkov missing for Finland. When you looked at that center depth chart for Sweden, it was like, ok, if Carlsson can be a driver, who goes head-to-head against the other teams’ best players, then Eriksson Ek’s on your second line, and (Elias) Pettersson can move to the third line, play a bit more of a sheltered role, you can pick and choose his spots. Mika Zibanejad’s having a great year. That center depth chart looked great. Now that you don’t have Carlsson up at the top, you kind of start wincing going, oh god, do you need to trust Zibanejad up there, is that something he can handle? Where does Pettersson go? It really messes everything up.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Wednesday’s episode here…