Canada releases Olympic roster, includes Sabres' No. 1 pick Power

Owen Power
, the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft by the Buffalo Sabres, will play for Canada at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Power, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, leads NCAA defensemen in scoring with 26 points (three goals, 23 assists) in 24 games.
The 19-year-old became the first Canada defenseman to score a hat trick at the IIHF World Junior Championship in a 6-3 win against Czechia in preliminary round play prior to the 2022 tournament being cancelled because of concerns surrounding the coronavirus.
"I've had the opportunity to know him since he was 16," Canada general manager Shane Doan said. "He played in Chicago with the Steel (of the United States Hockey League) and I got to know him there. He just has a level of maturity about him that I'm not too concerned about that. ... I'm a huge fan. I think he is a guy that has the opportunity to be a great player, like a great player and to have the chance to have him at something like this is big. ... he's somebody that is going to get an opportunity to play like everybody else and we'll see what his role is here."
Power joins goalie Devon Levi, a 20-year-old Sabres prospect, and forwards Mason McTavish, Eric Staal, Joshua Ho-Sang and David Desharnais, among NHL prospects and former NHL players who will compete for Canada in Beijing.
"I think it's obviously very exciting for them individually," Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams said about Power and Levi. "Any time you're able to put your country's jersey on and represent in that way is very, very meaningful at any level from all the way back when you're 16 years old through U-18s and World Juniors and certainly on a World Championship and Olympic stage. I think it's just an incredible honor, so we're really excited for them. We're proud of them and excited for the opportunity they have."
Levi helped Canada finish second at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship. He made 19 saves in a 2-0 loss to the United States in the championship game and was traded to Buffalo by the Florida Panthers on July 24 for forward Sam Reinhart and a first-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.
"It is an experience that is extremely unique, extremely rare," Sabres coach Don Granato said. "There's no Olympian that would probably tell you that there wasn't some life-changing component to becoming an Olympian and going through that experience. So, to have two young, talented guys go through that, have that opportunity, is a real bonus for us as an organization. And certainly because they're great kids, we're happy for them. But again, you're talking Canada. I mean, they're the Canadian Olympic team. That's a pretty big deal. That's a pretty deep pool of talented hockey players, so they should be pretty proud of that. I'm sure they are."
McTavish, an 18-year-old center chosen by the Anaheim Ducks with the No. 3 pick in the 2021 draft, had two goals and one assists in nine NHL games this season before he was assigned to Peterborough of the Ontario Hockey League on Nov. 20. He scored 11 points (five goals, six assists) to help Canada win the 2021 IIHF Under-18 World Championship for the first time since 2013.
Staal signed a professional tryout contract with the Minnesota Wild's American Hockey League affiliate in Iowa on Jan. 13 to help him prepare for the Olympics if he was selected. The 37-year-old last played in the NHL with the Montreal Canadiens last season. He scored 1,034 points (441 goals, 593 assists) in 1,293 games over 17 seasons for the Carolina Hurricanes, New York Rangers, Wild, Sabres and Canadiens after he was chosen by Carolina with the No. 2 pick in the 2003 NHL Draft.
"'Staalsy' has just been an icon for the country and what he's done in the NHL, but he also gives us that presence that I think is so valuable to have," Doan said. "When you think of Team Canada, you think of a guy like Eric Staal and I think that gives credibility to the group and I think he's somebody that we're going to count on for his leadership and lots of parts of his game."
Ho-Sang scored 24 points (seven goals, 17 assists) in 53 games over three seasons with the New York Islanders. He attended Toronto Maple Leafs training camp on a PTO before he was released. His 20 points (11 goals, nine assists) in 20 games this season for Toronto in the AHL are tied for third on the team.
Desharnais is in his third season with HC Fribourg of the National League, the top league in Switzerland. The undrafted free agent last played in the NHL for the Rangers in 2018-19 and scored 282 points (87 goals, 195 assists) in 282 regular-season games with Montreal, the Edmonton Oilers and New York.
Canada coach Claude Julien said the roster was selected with a specific style of play in mind.
"I think we looked at a lot of different things that we wanted, and we always talk about playing the 'Canadian way,'" Julien said. "We're a proud country with the way we play the game. We're an aggressive team and aggressive means our forecheck is aggressive. We want that puck back. We're very aggressive also on the transition game. We want to move that puck quick. We like to play fast. We like to be in your face kind of thing. So that doesn't change and the fact that we've got some good size, not only good size but good skaters, and all that stuff blends in way for the way we want to play."
The NHL announced Dec. 23 that its players would not participate in the Olympics after the regular-season schedule had been disrupted as a result of increasing COVID-19 cases and a rising number of postponed games.
The NHL and NHL Players' Association reached an agreement with the IIHF in September for the players to return to the Olympics for the first time since the 2014 Sochi Olympics and the first best-on-best international tournament since the World Cup of Hockey 2016 in Toronto.
The NHL had scheduled a break in the regular season from Feb. 3-22 to accommodate the 2022 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas and the Olympics. All-Star Weekend is expected to take place as scheduled with the remainder of the break being used to make up postponed games.
Canada plays Germany in its first preliminary round game Feb. 10.
NHL.com staff writer Tom Gulitti and NHL.com independent correspondent Heather Engel contributed to this report.