Coming off a bronze medal at the World Championships, Russia is looking for success at a best-on-best tournament
Russia has been an underachiever at best-on-best tournaments since professionals returned to the Olympics in Nagano almost 20 years ago. They have a silver and a bronze in the five Olympics with NHL participation, but no medals since 2002, even failing at home in Sochi in 2014.
Their team this time around will have depth at forward and in goal, but it is on the back end where the Russians will struggle. Alexei Emelin was named to the final roster after Canadiens teammate Andrei Markov was named to the preliminary roster.