For the first time in 12 years, NHL players are playing in the Winter Olympics.
Once upon a time, the Olympics served as a stage for cementing legacies. There’s little doubt that Pitsburgh’s Sidney Crosby will one day be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but his “Golden Goal” at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics added a layer to his legacy.
Meanwhile, former New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist has never won a Stanley Cup, but he backstopped an underdog Team Sweden to a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy — long considered a major selling point in his Hall of Fame case.
Who could use the Olympics to cement their legacy in 2026? Here are four players with a chance to beef up their Hall of Fame resumes:
Stone’s path — from long-shot sixth-round pick with skating concerns to legitimate NHL player in Ottawa to point-per-game Selke candidate and Stanley Cup–winning captain of the Vegas Golden Knights — is already impressive.
At 33, he’s still likely a season away from cracking the NHL’s top 250 in career points, but his playoff production already places him in the company of Hall of Famers. A gold-medal performance in 2026 would essentially check every remaining Hockey Hall of Fame box — provided his troublesome back allows him to play long enough to pad the counting stats.
Saros is only 30 and already has 223 career wins. He has a legitimate chance at winning 350 NHL games in his career, which would put him squarely in the conversation. The issue, though, is Saros has no major individual hardware and has never started in the Stanley Cup Finals. A Hall of Fame legacy for Saros might have to be built on what he does with an undermanned Finland team missing its best player (Alex Barkov).