Olympics are here for many NHL stars who waited half their careers or more for this

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MILAN (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon knew he wouldn't make Canada's 2014 Olympic team as an 18-year-old NHL rookie, while Germany's Leon Draisaitl and Czechia's David Pastrnak were still a year away from being drafted.

Canadian Connor McDavid and American Jack Eichel were just 17 and Auston Matthews 16 when the best hockey players in the world went to Sochi. They all figured they'd get their chance four years later, and it never came as the league chose not to go to Pyeongchang in 2018 — and then a global pandemic wreaked havoc and wrecked the chance to play in Beijing in 2022.

“We’ve been waiting, our generation, pretty much whole of our careers to play at the Olympics,” Pastrnak said.

Victor Hedman, inexplicably snubbed by Sweden a dozen years ago, is making his Olympic debut in Milan. And the moment has finally arrived for McDavid and MacKinnon to team up with Sidney Crosby for Canada and for Eichel and Matthews to join forces in the hopes of delivering the first U.S. gold medal in men's hockey since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.”

“Surreal," McDavid said, repeating himself in disbelief. “Surreal. It’s been a long time. Been a long time coming.”

The first games are Wednesday, with Finland and Slovakia kicking things off before Sweden faces host Italy in the nightcap.

“I don’t know if I'm going to feel great or awful, but I’m going to be flying for the first shifts,” Sweden's Adrian Kempe said.

Canada is just over an odds-on favorite, with the U.S. a little under 2-1 on BetMGM Sportsbook. Canada won three of the first five Olympics involving NHL players dating to 1998, including the past two in 2010 and '14, and anything short of gold is a disappointment in the country that invented the sport.

“Playing for Team Canada over the years, that’s something you learn is part of it, that expectation and that responsibility,” Crosby said. “We understand that, we have high expectations ourselves, and you’ve got to go out there and play and do all the things that are necessary to try to win. You can’t think too far ahead, but we understand that’s the expectation.”

The U.S. has a stacked roster, from Eichel, Matthews and brothers Brady and Matthew Tkachuk up front to a deep defense led by Quinn Hughes, Charlie McAvoy and Zach Werenski, and a stellar trio of goaltenders in Connor Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger and Jeremy Swayman. Its best finishes since 1980 were losses in the final — each time to Canada — in 2002 and '10.

Given the growth of hockey in the U.S. and the pipeline that has pumped out talent over the past couple of decades, general manager Bill Guerin made it clear it's gold or bust time.

“Pretty much every country’s mindset here is to win, and our team’s no different,” Matthew Tkachuk said. “If you come here with another mindset, you probably shouldn’t be here.”

Enter Sweden, the 15-2 third choice. Losing projected No. 1 center Leo Carlsson and top-four defenseman Jonas Brodin to injury certainly hurts, but the Swedes have four players back from the team that reached the final and took home silver in Sochi.

They are not worried about all the talk being about the U.S. and Canada.

"It doesn’t hit our ego," Sweden coach Sam Hallam said. “That’s natural. It’s the two biggest hockey nations in the world at the moment.”

The 12 teams are divided into three groups, with each playing three round-robin games. The U.S. opens Thursday against Latvia, plays Denmark in the so-called “Greenland Derby” on Saturday and wraps up the preliminary round Sunday against Draisaitl and Germany.

Canada is grouped with Czechia, Switzerland and France. Longtime rivals Finland and Sweden are with Italy and Slovakia.

No one gets eliminated, which changes the equation of how coaching staffs approach lineup and goaltending decisions and other aspects of the tournament.

“You don’t win a gold medal in your first game, but you can work on everybody’s game and work on yourself and work on your system and keep building,” Sweden forward Rickard Rakell said.

The teams are seeded 1 through 12 based on points (three for a regulation win, two for an overtime or shootout win, one for an overtime or shootout loss and none for a regulation loss), with tiebreakers including head-to-head matchups and goal differential.

The winner of each group plus the next-best overall team advances to the quarterfinals on Feb. 18. Teams ranked 5 through 12 play each other in a qualification round on Feb. 18.

The last time NHL players were in the Olympics, the entertainment level was off the charts. T.J. Oshie made a national name for himself with his shootout heroics to help the U.S. beat Russia on its home soil, and Canada had a clinical march to gold.

The 4 Nations Face-Off a year ago provided a taste of what this generation can do on the international stage. The pent-up anticipation of playing in the 4 Nations created a blistering pace.

This is not a long tournament, but the stakes are high — and the speed almost certainly will be turned up, too.

“It’s not as much of a sprint,” MacKinnon said. “But I can’t imagine the pace is going to slow down.”

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics