The 2022 Winter Olympics are set to get underway tonight with the first games of the women’s hockey tournament. Today, I’m going to look at some of the players I’m going to be keeping an eye on over the next few weeks.
I’ve broken it down into three categories. Men’s (three players per nation), Men’s goaltenders (one per division) and Women’s (one player per nation).
Let’s take a look at who I’ll be watching and who you should keep your eye on at Beijing 2022!
Men’s Tournament
Group A
- Canada: Mason McTavish, Owen Power, Eric Staal
- China: Brandon Yip, Ryan Sproul, Spencer Foo
- Germany: Tom Kuhnhackl, Dominik Kahun, Tobias Rieder
- United States: Matty Beniers, Jake Sanderson, Brendan Brisson
Group B
- Czech Republic: David Krejci, Libor Sulak, Michael Frolik
- Denmark: Frans Nielsen, Mikkel Bodker, Oliver Larsen
- Russian Olympic Committee: Nikita Gusev, Vadim Shipachyov, Nikita Nesterov
- Switzerland: Andres Ambhul, Yannick Weber, Sven Andrighetto
Group C
- Finland: Sami Vatanen, Toni Rajala, Valtteri Filppula
- Latvia: Kaspars Daugavins, Martins Dzierkals, Renars Krastenbergs
- Slovakia: Simon Nemec, Juraj Slafkovsky, Samuel Knazko
- Sweden: Lucas Wallmark, Jacob de la Rose, Christian Folin
Men’s Goalies
- Group A: Mathias Niederberger (Germany)
- Group B: Sebastian Dahm (Denmark)
- Group C: Kristers Gudlevskis (Latvia)
Women’s Tournament
- Group A: Renata Fast (Canada), Petra Nieminen (Finland), Valeria Pavlova (Russian Olympic Committee), Lara Stalder (Switzerland), Abbey Murphy (United States)
- Group B: Leah Lum (China), Samantha Kolowratova (Czech Republic), Josefine Jackobsen (Denmark), Nana Fujimoto (Japan), Emma Nordin (Sweden)
The women’s tournament will kick off tonight as mentioned with a pair of games. China/Czech Republic and Switzerland/Canada, which both start at 11:10pm ET. Japan/Sweden will begin overnight at 3:40am ET, while the United States/Finland will play tomorrow morning at 8:10am ET.
I hope everyone enjoys the Olympics!
-Cooper.