When the Danes won their group at the recent Olympic qualifiers on home ice in Aalborg, they did it with close to the strongest lineup they could have possibly built. Close.

NHLers Frederik Andersen, Lars Eller, Nikolaj Ehlers and Jonas Røndbjerg were all there, as were several players with plenty of big-game international experience. 

“I am of course very satisfied with the squad,” head coach Mikael Gath said ahead of the tournament. “We are going into the tournament the strongest possible team, and I am super happy that we are getting such strong players from North America, Europe and the Danish League. There is no doubt that the players’ motivation is huge.”

The team would have preferred to have Oliver Bjorkstrand in the lineup, but he suffered an injury in one of the pre-tournament games and was ruled out. However, Julian Gaudio of THN’s Seattle Kraken site reported that Bjorkstrand is expected to be back in time for the start of NHL training camp, so he should certainly be good to go by the time the Olympics roll around.

Beyond that, there are a couple of young Danes who weren’t quite ready to join the team in August 2024 but might be by February 2026. Giant d-man Kasper Larsen, who had two solid seasons for the OHL’s Mississauga Ice Dogs and is about to play in the SHL this season with Gävle, will be 23 by the Olympics, and he seems like a good bet to make the team. Another possibility is right winger Oliver Kjær, who is about to begin his first Finnish Liiga season with SaiPa and will be 25 by the Olympics.

The question becomes, who leaves the lineup to make room? Fortunately, Denmark only nominated 23 players for the Olympic qualifiers which means that, if we add three, we only have to subtract one to make 25.

On defense, we can simply add Larsen to bring the number of d-men up to eight. Up front, one will need to go in order to add Bjorkstrand and Kjær, and it might be finally time for Morton Poulsen to say good-bye. The veteran winger will be 37 by the time of the Olympics and has now been back in the Danish league for a number of years.

Goaltenders: Frederik Andersen, Frederik Dichow, Mads Søgaard.

Defensemen: Jesper Jensen Aabo, Philip Bruggisser, Kasper Larsen, Markus Lauridsen, Oliver Lauridsen, Nicholas B Jensen, Anders Koch, Matias Lassen.

Forwards: Mikkel Aagaard, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Joachim Blichfeld, Nikolaj Ehlers, Lars Eller, Mathias From, Nicklas Jensen, Oliver Kjær, Oscar Fisker Mølgaard, Jonas Røndbjerg, Patrick Russell, Frederik Storm, Alexander True, Christian Wejse.

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