The obvious take about the Boston Bruins and the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina is that it’s a great reflection on their roster talent that they sent nine total players from the organization to the Olympic hockey tournament taking place in Italy.
Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman were all decked out in their Team USA gear for Friday’s opening ceremonies, and David Pastrnak was honored as one of the flag bearers for Team Czechia during those same opening ceremonies.
David Pastrnak shared this on his IG story. What a cool moment for him and his family. pic.twitter.com/X0DvBBKAGM
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) February 6, 2026
It was an honor that the 29-year-old was incredibly humbled and honored by, and it speaks to how big of a deal No. 88 is in a home country where he’s going to be mentioned in the same breath as legends like Jaromir Jagr when it’s all said and done.
“Honestly [I am] speechless,” said Pastrnak after Wednesday night’s final regular-season shootout loss to the Panthers ahead of the Olympic break. “Very, very honored and going over there to represent my country. I am going to give them my all. Very happy and honored to be able to hold our flag and represent us at the ceremony.”
But there is another side to all of this, and it’s the incredible strain that having so many Olympic players is going to have on the Black and Gold once the NHL resumes, and the B’s play their final 25 regular-season games in the six-week sprint to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Bruins will have eight players at the Olympic games after it was announced on Saturday that Pavel Zacha will be withdrawing from services for Team Czechia due to an injury, he suffered last week while playing with the Bruins.
🇨🇿 GM Jiri Slegr on centre Pavel Zacha being unavailable for Olympics due to injury:
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) February 7, 2026
“It’s sad for our team &, of course, for Pavel because he was very anxious to be here … unfortunately, he’s hurt. They wouldn’t let him come here so it's sad”
Open 🆚 🇨🇦 Thursday@TSN_Sports pic.twitter.com/YZeVWEvFcX
That leaves McAvoy and Swayman playing for Team USA, Pastrnak leading Team Czechia, Elias Lindholm and Hampus Lindholm playing for Team Sweden, Dans Locmelis playing for Team Latvia and Henri Jokiharju and Joonas Korpisalo playing for Team Finland. That is one of the highest participation numbers for an NHL team in the Olympics, along with the Florida Panthers sending nearly half their roster to Italy as well.
Everybody saw during last season’s 4 Nations Faceoff what can happen when a key player suffers a significant injury during one of these international tournaments as McAvoy’s shoulder injury, and the subsequent complications as a result of the injury, was the big precursor for Boston holding a huge fire sale of veteran players at the NHL trade deadline.
In the long run, that fire sale was a tremendous help to the Bruins with players like Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov and prospect Will Zellers entering the organization along with a raft of draft picks, but the McAvoy injury served as the final nail in last season’s coffin for a team that was already missing Hampus Lindholm.
That is something that is at the forefront of B’s head coach Marco Sturm’s mind as so many of his players get ready for the Olympics, along with those players coming back with a full tank of gas and a ready willingness to serve the same role for their NHL team even if they play the star role for their own country at the Winter Games.
“It’s going to be interesting…and I can’t even tell you [how it’s going to play out]. It’s going to be a challenge as it’s almost like we have too many of our guys going. It’s going to be a challenge for every team, but even more so for our team because we have a lot of guys going [to the Olympics],” said Sturm. “It will not be easy, but guys know what to do know. I think that’s the biggest thing. Guys know their roles, they know the system and they know the structure, so hopefully exactly what happened in the past month they don’t forget over the break playing for different coaches and different teams.
“Hopefully they bring the same attitude and the same structure back in March.”
It will all make for a great hockey spectacle over the next three weeks as the best hockey players in the world engage in the highest-level international tournament anybody could ever hope for, but the Bruins are hoping they don’t have a higher price to pay than other teams when everybody starts thinking about the NHL once again at the end of this month. ONE TIMERS
*Good for Charlie McAvoy for speaking up on social media about the ridiculous soft treatment of Latvian Panthers forward Sandis Milvanis throwing a blatant flying elbow at the Bruins defenseman, which received just a minor penalty for an illegal check to the head. No major penalty. No match penalty. No review of the play by officials or the league at the time. No supplemental discipline on the play presumably because McAvoy was able to continue to play in the game afterward.
— Charlie McAvoy (@CMcAvoy44) February 7, 2026
But McAvoy sent out a tweet post with a photo of his face where you can clearly see the swelling from the elbow that Milvanis threw as the point of contact as he left his feet prior to even making contact with the Bruins defenseman. There was so much wrong with the play from a rules and player safety standpoint that it makes many people curious why the Florida Panthers continue to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of these gray area/questionable plays where it feels like the league should be stepping in.
The good news is that McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman made it to Milan Cortina in time for the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and McAvoy is healthy and ready to suit up for Team USA as they, ironically enough, ready to play Team Latvia in their first Olympic game.
Jeremy Swayman, Charlie McAvoy, Jake Oettinger and Zach Werenski at the Olympics opening ceremony (via Swayman’s IG story) pic.twitter.com/gtEiGXLaWo
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) February 6, 2026
But the NHL continues to err on the side of players taking head shots at opponents as of late.
That is not a good thing when it comes to the way the Department of Player Safety is policing things these days, just as they also let chronic dirty hit author Tom Wilson during a recent incident because of the height difference in the players.
That is not really something that’s been allowed to be a mitigating factor in hits reviewed by the league over the years, so it really begs the question as to what George Parros is doing in that office these days.
*A lot of hubbub about Matt Poitras being sent down to AHL Providence at the start of the Olympic break for the NHL, but that is standard practice for a young player that the Bruins want to keep playing games as the league goes on a three-week hiatus during the Olympics. It may be that Poitras won’t be coming back up to Boston once the Olympics are over if Elias Lindholm gets out of it fully healthy and ready to go once the NHL resumes play, but that was going to happen either way once Lindholm regained full health.