NHL’s Bettman: ‘Time will tell’ if Russia plays in World Cup

Whether Russia and its collection of NHL stars will be invited to the 2028 World Cup of Hockey remains very uncertain.

“We’re going to see how things develop. Time will tell,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday at the GM meetings in Florida. “There isn’t an immediate need or urgency to make that decision, so let’s see how things play out.”

The World Cup of Hockey, a joint venture between the NHL and the NHLPA, will next take place in February 2028 with eight teams playing in three cities — Calgary, Edmonton and Prague.

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Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been banned from international play in all age categories by the International Ice Hockey Federation. The IIHF has cited security concerns as the primary factor.

Russia’s participation in the World Cup of Hockey has been the source of fierce debate, with some arguing a true “best-on-best” tournament must feature the Russians.

Entering Monday’s games, three of the NHL’s top 20 scorers were Russian-born: Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov, Minnesota Wild winger Kirill Kaprizov and Los Angeles Kings winger Artemi Panarin. Russia might also have the world’s best goaltending trio in Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, New York Islanders netminder Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers.

That said, concern over how to integrate Russian players into an NHL-led international event and opposition from countries such as Finland were major reasons the planned 2024 World Cup of Hockey was scrapped in favor of the 4 Nations Face-Off, a four-team tournament held in February 2025 that provided huge returns for the NHL thanks to a pair of USA vs. Canada games.

The NHL isn’t obliged to recognize the IIHF ban for its international events, but Bettman has indicated that the league will follow “what the international community is doing in terms of athletics” in determining Russia’s status.

“I don’t see any need for us to weigh in separately,” Bettman said at a news conference during the Olympics.

IIHF president Luc Tardif has indicated that his organization would take its lead from the International Olympic Committee. Neither Russia nor Belarus had a team in the recently completed Winter Olympic hockey tournaments in Milan.

Last December, the IOC advised international governing sports bodies to let Russian and Belarus youth teams and athletes compete with their full identity of national flag and anthem — a move many felt was the first step toward reintegration of the nations into international tournament play.

The IIHF has considered welcoming back Russia and Belarus into under-18 competition in the 2027-28 season, with Tardif calling it “a first step.”

Marty Walsh, executive director of the NHLPA, said last year that he’d love to see the league’s Russian players participating in best-on-best tournaments again.

“They’re incredible hockey players. The issues are political. Not political as far as the NHLPA; it’s world politics we have to get through,” Walsh said. “I’m hoping that as we get closer to the World Cup, we will start seeing Russian athletes back in the competition.”

This will be the fourth edition of the World Cup of Hockey, having been previously held in 1996, 2004 and 2016, most recently won by Team Canada. The World Cup’s return is part of an aggressive expansion of the NHL’s international calendar. Bettman has said the vision is to alternate between the NHL’s participation in the Olympic men’s hockey tournament and a World Cup every two years.

The 2028 World Cup of Hockey will have eight teams, with two pools of four teams each and the top three advancing.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the intensity of competition at the World Cup could be greater than that of the Olympics.

“What you saw in the Olympics is an indication of what you’ll see in the World Cup of Hockey,” Daly said. “It’s the top teams in the world. [But] here are only eight of them, not 12 of them, so obviously the hockey got better as the Olympics progressed. We’re going to be in a situation where the hockey is really good right away.”