Several New Jersey Devils stars are in Milan, Italy right now, preparing to take part in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. Jack Hughes is the player with the best chance to make a legitimate run at the gold medal, but that doesn’t mean the other players on their respective country’s roster are out of the running. We see surprises at almost every Olympics.
One of those surprises could be Switzerland. They don’t have the easiest run to a gold medal (they have Canada and Czechia in their group), but they need to beat great teams to make a run.
The Swiss team is going to go as far as Nico Hischier can take them. He’s the assistant captain for them, as well. Roman Josi was actually named the captain.
Hischier has been up and down for the Devils this season, and some think he’s been dealing with injuries throughout the year. Despite this, he hasn’t missed a game this season. He’s one of just five Devils players who have been in the lineup for every game.
Now that Hischier is once again playing for something, we expect to see another level from him. It also probably helps that he’s had almost a week off from games to rest and heal. He can go into the Olympics with a nice reset.
Who makes the most sense to pair with Nico Hischier on Team Switzerland?
The Swiss team has been practicing, and to nobody’s surprise, Hischier has been centering the top line. What has been somewhat of a surprise is his linemates.
For one, he’s not linemates with the person he’s linemates with in the NHL most of the time. Timo Meier is actually on the third line for the Swiss with Pius Suter and Philipp Kurashev. This isn’t the ideal line combination for Meier, but that’s not who we are talking about in this article.
Hischier was on a line with Kevin Fiala (Great!) and Calvin Thurkauf (Who?). Fiala is by far the best left winger on the Swiss National Team. On the right side, they have Meier and Nino Niederreiter. Yet, Swiss head coach Patrick Fischer has Hischier playing with Thurkauf.
He’s a former seventh-round pick who has played three games in the NHL in his career. Hischier played three NHL games last week. Thurkauf has been with Lugano of the Swiss league for the past five years, and he’s been alright. He has 15 goals in 43 games this season. That’s a 28-29 goal pace if they were to play an 82-game season.
However, they have two NHL wingers who should be in that spot.
Fiala makes sense next to Hischier. We’re excited to see that, but if we’re talking about ideal linemates, we would really like Hischier to also get some time with Niederreiter. Meier would be good, too, but we think the best possible line would be Fiala-Hischier-Niederreiter.
Both Fiala and Hischier can act as the goal scorers on the line, while Niederreiter plays a decent two-way game. This would be much better if we had the Hurricanes’ version of Niederreiter, but this will have to do.
Meier can play down the lineup and add goal scoring and toughness when Hischier isn’t in the lineup. Hopefully, that builds some of his confidence so he returns as March Meier once again.