I tend to assume that you’ve been paying attention, dear readers, and that might not be the wisest thing to do all the time.
We’ve talked about Marco Kasper and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard a bit over the course of the last couple of weeks, with Kasper training in Klagenfurt, Austria under his dad/agent/mentor’s watchful eye, preparing for the Olympic Qualifying tournament, where he’ll play for Austria…
And the highlight clips of Brandsegg-Nygard have been flowing as he prepares for a truncated preseason which includes preseason games played for Skelleftea AIK of the SHL, a couple of Champions League games, and the same Olympic Qualifying games from August 29-31, where MBN is going to play for Norway.
If you were not aware of these two players’ statuses as attempting to help their respective countries make the Olympics in Turin in 2026, the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood posted an explainer:
Kasper and Brandsegg-Nygard are both representing their countries at Olympic qualifying tournaments this month. Kasper and Team Austria are playing in Group D, while Brandsegg-Nygard and Team Norway are in Group F.
These final qualifying tournaments are each nation’s last chance to participate in the 2026 Olympic Games. Austria must win its tournament against Kazakhstan, Hungary and Slovakia. The country last appeared in the Olympic games in 2014, finishing 1-0-0-3 with its only win against Norway.
Norway’s Olympic history includes a few more recent passages. The Norwegians missed the Olympics in 2022, but they did appear in the 2018 PyeongChang games, finishing 0-1-1-3 overall. To make it back to the Games, Norway must finish best among Denmark, Great Britain and Japan at this month’s qualification tournament.
Both Kasper and Brandsegg-Nygard are expected to play big roles for their teams. In five international appearances in 2022-23 — right after Detroit picked him eighth overall in the 2022 NHL Draft — Kasper tallied three points. Kasper has spent the past year developing a stronger offensive toolkit with the Grand Rapids Griffins, complementing his two-way defensive strengths. He should be a much more complete player for the hopeful Austrians. He already scored once in a warmup game against Slovenia.
Brandsegg-Nygard, meanwhile, played on the Norwegians’ top line at the 2024 IIHF Men’s World Championship. He notched five points in seven Men’s Worlds games, right before the Red Wings picked him 15th overall at the 2024 NHL Draft. Now, he’s been dazzling in the SHL preseason with a couple of goals in as many games for Skelleftea AIK. Alongside Anaheim defense prospect Stian Solberg, he represents a youth movement among Norway’s men’s teams that brings a lot of potential to the table.
Again, I’m hoping that you know that MBN and Kasper are both going to take part in training camp with the Red Wings, though Brandsegg-Nygard has made it clear that he wants to return to Skelleftea instead of playing in the AHL; Kasper will embark upon his second North American pro season with Grand Rapids this October, barring a surprising turn of events in the Red Wings’ preseason.
Regarding the Olympic Qualifying tournaments, as you might expect, IceHockeyGifs and Red Wings Prospects are all over this stuff on Twitter, and you can follow along at the Austrian Eishockey Association here, or Team Norway’s website here. Both Austria and Norway have Twitter accounts as well.
Kasper scored two goals in a warm-up overtime win vs. Slovenia today, and here’s what he had to say to Eishockey.at:
Marco Kasper: “It’s always good to score, and that we won. We can improve a lot more in terms of our play. Slovenia made it really difficult for us. Now we’ll try to improve for next week.
Alles klar? Gut, gut. I hope you don’t mind that I don’t do a whole lot of hand-holding on the blog. I try to assume that you, the reader, are paying attention, but if you need reminders, it’s up to you to let me know!
