Olympic qualification wraps up; three teams advance to Beijing 2022 including a debutant
Qualification for the 2022 Winter Olympics was completed on Sunday afternoon. The three nations will now advance to Beijing where they'll join the hosts and the top eight ranked countries by the IIHF in a quest for the gold medal beginning on February 4th.
In the first group, hosted in Bratislava, Slovakia qualified for their eighth straight Olympics. In the second group, hosted in Riga, Latvia qualified for the fifth time in the last six Olympics', missing out on the 2018 Games. In the third and final group, hosted in Oslo, Nikolaj Ehlers and team Denmark qualified for their first Olympics in their history.
With qualification now finished, the groups are set for Beijing 2022.
Group A: Canada, United States, Germany, China.
Group B: Russian Olympic Committee, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Denmark.
Group C: Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Latvia.
For those who are unsure how the Olympic tournament works, let me break it down. The 12 teams are placed into three groups of four, as shown above, based on their IIHF ranking. The group winners and best second place team advance to the quarterfinals, while the remaining eight teams advance to the qualification playoff round.
The schedule will be released in the coming months, and it appears that the NHL will be returning to the Olympics for the first time since 2014.
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Taylor Hall | 3 | - | 3 | |
| Brayden Point | 3 | - | 3 | |
| Brock Nelson | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Bryan Rust | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Pavel Zacha | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Quinn Hughes | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Carter Verhaeghe | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Erik Karlsson | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Elias Lindholm | - | 3 | 3 | |
| David Pastrnak | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Tim Stutzle | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Adam Gaudette | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Dylan Holloway | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Brad Marchand | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Aleksander Barkov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sam Bennett | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sean Couturier | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Alex DeBrincat | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jack Drury | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Cutter Gauthier | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Jets | 23 | 18 | 5 | - | 36 | |
Hurricanes | 22 | 16 | 5 | 1 | 33 | |
Wild | 22 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 32 | |
Devils | 25 | 15 | 8 | 2 | 32 | |
Capitals | 22 | 15 | 6 | 1 | 31 | |
Golden Knights | 23 | 14 | 6 | 3 | 31 | |
Maple Leafs | 22 | 13 | 7 | 2 | 28 | |
Flames | 23 | 12 | 7 | 4 | 28 | |
Panthers | 23 | 13 | 9 | 1 | 27 | |
Kings | 23 | 12 | 8 | 3 | 27 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||