Imagined Russian Olympic hockey roster would reshape Milan 2026

The Athletic recruited Igor Larionov to draft a purely hypothetical Russian Olympic hockey roster for Milan 2026, placing Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Igor Shesterkin in goal (Romanov was excluded due to shoulder surgery, with Artem Zub replacing him), and pairing Ovechkin with Ivan Demidov on a top line while Panarin centers a second unit alongside rising players like Fedor Svechkov and Ilya Mikheyev. Larionov argues this squad would likely have been a bronze-medal favorite thanks to elite goaltending and offense, and notes Russia’s presence would have altered group alignments and depressed medal odds for Canada, the U.S. and Sweden, making the Milan tournament more unpredictable and tense in the early rounds.