When the 12 nations that will take part in the Olympic tournament announced their first six players on Monday, a single Montreal Canadiens player was named: Juraj Slafkovsky with Team Slovakia. That’s not to say Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Patrik Laine won’t be representing their respective countries come February, but they haven't made the cut yet.
A former Hab was part of Denmark’s first six selection: Lars Eller. The 36-year-old center spent six seasons in Montreal after being acquired by Pierre Gauthier in the controversial Jaroslav Halak trade. With the Canadiens, the Dane became a complete player and a reliable defensive center. He played 435 games with the Tricolore, accumulating 154 points and 297 penalty minutes.
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At the 2016 draft, GM Marc Bergevin traded him to the Washington Capitals for two second-round picks before acquiring Andrew Shaw from the Chicago Blackhawks; those trades kicked off a busy five days for the Canadiens’ GM, who would trade P.K. Subban to the Nashville Predators for Shea Weber a few days later.
In his second season with the Capitals, Eller became a Stanley Cup champion. While he’s not usually a huge point producer, he was the one who scored the Cup clinching goal against the Vegas Golden Knights and finished the playoffs with 18 points in 24 games, by far the best performance of his career in the postseason (the only time he even came close was when he put up 13 points in 2014 with the Canadiens).
Eller stayed in Washington until the trade deadline in 2023, when the Caps traded him to the Colorado Avalanche in return for a second-round pick. In the off-season, the Dane signed a two-year contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins as a free agent, but 17 games into his second season in Pennsylvania, the Caps reacquired him in return for a 2025 third-round pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick.
Unfortunately for the Caps, he wasn’t able to find his playoff form this time around and could only manage a single point in nine postseason games. Still, he performed well enough to be named to Denmark’s Olympic squad along with Nikolaj Ehlers, Frederik Andersen, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Jonas Rondbjerg and Jesper Jensen Abo.
Photo credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
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