On Tuesday, Jan. 20, the Italian Ice Sports Federation announced its final roster for the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Milan-Cortina in February. Italy’s first game will be on Wednesday, Feb. 11, against Sweden at 3:10 PM EST.
Related: Against the Odds: The Journey of the Italian Ice Hockey Team
As the host nation, Italy has automatically qualified but is certainly lacking in talent, as they are the only country without a single NHL player on their roster. However, that doesn’t mean they won’t have any fun players to watch. Here are three to keep an eye on:
G Damian Clara
While Damian Clara just turned 21 years old, he’s (by far) the most accomplished Italian Ice Hockey player in a long time. For starters, he’s the only one on the team who currently belongs to an NHL organization; the Anaheim Ducks selected him in the second round of the 2023 NHL Draft. The 6-foot-6, 214-pound netminder currently plays for Brynäs IF in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him permanently move to North America as early as next season.
🦂 Scorpion Save Alert 🦂
Damian 👏 Clara 👏 pic.twitter.com/XWnTxUsZax
— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) July 5, 2024
Clara, born in Brunico, Italy, was such a standout amongst his countrymates that at just 16 years old, he made the Senior National Team for the 2021 IIHF World Championships. In 35 international appearances across the last six seasons for Italy, he’s compiled a 20-11-0 record and has finished the last three seasons with these save percentages (SV%): .904%, .926% and .927%. He certainly possesses game-stealing capabilities; playing professionally in Sweden and Finland for the last four seasons — plus a one-game taste of the American Hockey League (AHL), he’s 63-40-0 and has averaged a .904 SV%.
Former New York Rangers forward Dan Catenacci, who was teammates with Clara at the 2024 Division IA World Championships, spoke very highly of Clara in a 2024 interview with The Hockey Writers: “After having the chance to see him day in and day out and how he conducts himself, he works his ass off. He’s such a young goalie, and right away you see his process at the rink of working hard, taking care of himself and having the will to learn. I’ve been around a lot of pros in my career and to see what he’s like at that young age is very impressive.
D Thomas Larkin
Aside from Clara, 35-year-old Thomas Larkin is the only other teammate who was drafted by an NHL team (2009 Round 5 #137 Overall by Columbus Blue Jackets). The journeyman defenseman spent time in the NCAA, AHL, ECHL and Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), before heading to the German Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL), where he’s played for the last 10 seasons.
While he doesn’t bring a ton of offense, he’s an effective shutdown defenseman who has not finished a season with a plus-minus worse than +2 since 2016-17. At 6-foot-5, he’s also very physical and a natural-born leader. Despite never making the NHL, he boasts 24 accolades over his career, including but not limited to: 2012 NCAA (ECAC) Third All-Star Team, 2019 DEL Champion, and 2024 World Championship (D1A) Best Defenseman. If Italy has any chance at an upset bid, it’ll be with Larkin playing a majority of the tough minutes against NHL talent.
Fun fact: he’s one of 15 on the roster who were not born in Italy but have dual citizenship. Larkin — born in London, England — lived in Italy and competed for their National Teams since he was a teenager.
F Tommy Purdeller
While 21-year-old Tommy Purdeller went undrafted multiple times, he has something on his side that a lot of his teammates don’t: youth. (Team Italy’s average age is 29.44)
TOMMY ON THE SPOT 🇮🇹
Tommy Purdeller bangs in his 11th of the season to tie the game for the @PetesOHLhockey! pic.twitter.com/njmSRjCcc9
— Ontario Hockey League (@OHLHockey) March 6, 2024
At one point, Purdeller — born in Brunico, Italy like Clara — believed in a potential NHL future enough to move to Canada as a teenager, where he played for the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). In the 2022-23 season, he became the first Italian to ever win a Canadian Hockey League (CHL) Championship.
In the 2023-24 season, he put up a respectable 47 points in 63 games there, leading the entire team. He followed that up a year later by posting five points in five games for Italy at the Division IA World Championships. He’s since played professionally for HC Pustertal in the ICE Hockey League, where a majority of Italy’s roster currently plays. He has 27 points in 38 games there.
Coach to Watch: Jukka Jalonen
While having just two players drafted shows the type of talent pool Italy possesses, they certainly have the right coach to help lead them to an upset.
Their Finnish head coach, Jukka Jalonen, previously led Team Finland to three World Championship golds, an Olympic gold medal, and a World Junior gold. He also won a Liiga championship, among various other accolades. And how he’s done it is what will fare best for Italy: he’s arguably the best in the world at taking a cast of underdogs and making them succeed by playing stifling defense to win close games.
While this will be the tallest task of Jalonen’s career, even just a close effort against a top country will be remembered forever — a la Latvia in 2014, when they lost 2-1 to Canada. And they’ll have a raucous home crowd behind them the whole way.
