Pals, we’re about a month out from the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will take place in Italy from Feb. 6-22.

The 2026 Olympics will see National Hockey League affiliated players return to their men’s hockey tournament for the first time since 2014. When the 2025-26 season began, the thought process was that the Calgary Flames could potentially send as many as six players to the Olympics.

They’ll probably end up sending two, and it could potentially be less than that.

Forward Martin Pospisil was one of the first six players named to Slovakia’s men’s national team back in June.

Defenceman Rasmus Andersson was named to Sweden’s men’s national team at the end of December.

Sam Honzek was having a great start to the season and, given Slovakia’s limited NHL options, seemed like a great bet to make their national team. Unfortunately he was hurt on a fluke collision with Flames captain Mikael Backlund back in November and required surgery that will keep him out for several months.

MacKenzie Weegar (Canada) attended the national team’s summer orientation, but didn’t do enough early in the season to dislodge anybody from the established 4 Nations Face-Off blueline. Mikael Backlund (Sweden) and Adam Klapka (Czechia) have both had good seasons thus far, but both fell short of making their respective rosters.

Yes. While the reserve lists of potential injury replacement players haven’t been publicly disclosed by the various national teams, it’s likely that Weegar, Backlund and Klapka are all on their respective countries’ lists. Heck, Weegar has already confirmed it to the media. If somebody gets hurt, one of these guys could go.

Yes, on two fronts.

Pospisil has played zero games this season due to an injury suffered during training camp. He’s back skating, but there’s no guarantee that he’s back in game action before the Olympics.

Andersson is a pending unrestricted free agent and a frequent topic of trade speculation. He’s in a similar situation as Elias Lindholm was two seasons ago; Lindholm ended up being named to the NHL All-Star Game… and then getting traded by the Flames to Vancouver during the All-Star Break. While there’s a roster freeze in effect during the Olympic break itself, we can’t rule out the very real possibility that Andersson’s NHL rights could change hands before the Olympics.

In other words, it’s completely possible that the Flames could end up having zero players at the Olympics.

We’ll see what happens between now and early February.