We knew this was coming but now we know it for real: Matty Beniers and Brendan Brisson are going to the Beijing Olympics in February as part of Team USA's Olympic men's hockey squad, as announced last night. Also, though not entirely official, it appears extremely likely that Kent Johnson and Owen Power will be named to Canada's team in the coming few days: 

Hearing Canada will name Owen Power and 19 year old Port Moody native Kent Johnson as 2 NCAA players from Michigan to represent Canada at the Olympics.

Great opportunity for local kid Johnson, former Trail Smoke Eater in the BCHL.

— Rick Dhaliwal (@DhaliwalSports) January 13, 2022

None of Michigan's other players made the Team USA cut, and no one besides Power and Johnson are in consideration for Canada, so it seems pretty much final that Michigan will lose these four to the Olympics and no one else. Spared are Thomas Bordeleau, Luke Hughes, and Mackie Samoskevich (I suppose Erik Portillo could be picked by Sweden but I've heard no buzz about that and Swedish Hockey generally has a bias against younger players). 

As we outlined in my column on Monday, the players headed to the Olympics are going to leave at the start of February and thus are expected to play Michigan's series on January 28-29 in Madison. They will then miss three weekends (one of which is a bye week for Michigan) and then should be back for the final weekend of the regular season @Notre Dame. That all gets derailed if any of the players test positive for COVID-19 in Beijing, where they could be subject to a lengthy mandatory quarantine. 

This is definitely an inconvenient development, as Michigan will lose their entire top line and #1 defenseman, but there isn't much the program could do about it. If you want to get high-end NHL talent, you have to respect their decision to chase a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play in the Olympics, which is what Mel Pearson has done. The good news is that Michigan has built themselves with a lot of depth, and the teams they are facing during the Olympics aren't exactly the highest skill squads in the conference (MSU/OSU), but Michigan will have to play a different kind of game absent these big dogs. It will probably look more like the trapping and grinding play of the 2019-20 Michigan team than the current iteration of the program. Players like Bordeleau, Hughes, Samoskevich, Portillo, and Johnny Beecher will be counted on to step up for those four games. We'll see if they can in due time. 

Bonus note: former Michigan Wolverines Strauss Mann (G) and Steven Kampfer (D) were also named to the American roster. Mann is the favorite to be the starting goalie for Team USA. Michigan natives Pat Nagle (G), who played at Ferris State, and Andy Miele (F), who played at Miami (OH), were named to the team as well. There is no content after the jump.