The Line Blender: Using a GNN To Produce Olympic Rosters

2026-01-31

By using the GNN, we can evaluate any hypothetical lineup. Including combinations across teams, where little to no historical line data may exist.

In my previous post, we looked at all possible combinations of lines and pairings on a team's roster. But, where this is most interesting, is looking at combinations across teams. Typically this would be hamstrung by a lack of data; there's limited data on how players from different teams would play together. With the Olympics approaching, this presents a fascinating challenge. Searching the full pool of eligible players produces hundreds of thousands of potential combinations.

Below, I have used the GNN embeddings to score every possible line and pairing for the Canadian, Finnish, Swedish, and American roster using skater data from each of 2024 and 2025. For the Canadian and American teams, exclusively, I also limited the candidate lines and pairings to players that were invited to their Olympic camps.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Connor Bedard, Sam Bennett, Zach Hyman, Mark Sheifele, Carter Verhaeghe
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Noah Dobson, Mackenzie Weegar

Considered 2,544 forward lines and 78 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Connor Bedard, Sam Bennett, Zach Hyman, Mark Sheifele
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Mackenzie Weegar, Noah Dobson

Considered 2,544 forward lines and 78 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Sam Bennett, Michael Carcone, Lawson Crouse, Dylan Guenther, Boone Jenner, Jack McBain, Beckett Sennecke
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Brent Burns, Jakob Chychrun, Josh Manson

Considered 1,211,815 forward lines and 5,778 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Sam Bennett, Lawson Crouse, Dylan Guenther, Boone Jenner, Jack McBain, Beckett Sennecke, Evander Kane
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Brent Burns, Jakob Chychrun, Josh Manson

Considered 1,211,815 forward lines and 5,778 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Sam Bennett, Zach Hyman, Seth Jarvis, John Tavares, Carter Verhaeghe
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Noah Dobson, Brandon Montour

Considered 2,544 forward lines and 78 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Sam Bennett, Zach Hyman, Seth Jarvis, John Tavares, Robert Thomas, Carter Verhaeghe
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Noah Dobson, Brandon Montour

Considered 2,544 forward lines and 78 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Sam Bennett, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Zach Hyman, Seth Jarvis, Jordan Martinook, Connor McMichael
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Brent Burns, Thomas Chabot, Dougie Hamilton, Darnell Nurse

Considered 995,414 forward lines and 5,565 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Sam Bennett, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Zach Hyman, Seth Jarvis, Connor McMichael, Carter Verhaeghe
Defense: Evan Bouchard, Brent Burns, Thomas Chabot, Dougie Hamilton, Darnell Nurse

Considered 995,414 forward lines and 5,565 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Aatu Räty
Defense: Urho Vaakanainen

Considered 1,165 forward lines and 28 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Kasperi Kapanen, Aatu Räty
Defense: Urho Vaakanainen

Considered 1,165 forward lines and 28 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Aleksander Barkov (injury), Jesperi Kotkaniemi
Considered 1,165 forward lines and 36 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Aleksander Barkov (injury), Jesperi Kotkaniemi
Considered 1,165 forward lines and 36 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Victor Arvidsson, Mikael Backlund, Leo Carlsson, Emil Heineman, Fabian Zetterlund
Defense: Mattias Ekholm, Joel Nystrom

Considered 10,570 forward lines and 351 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Viktor Arvidsson, Mikael Backlund, Fabian Zetterlund, William Eklund, William Karlsson
Defense: Mattias Ekholm

Considered 7,296 forward lines and 325 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Viktor Arvidsson, Mikael Backlund, William Eklund, William Karlsson, Fabian Zetterlund
Defense: Mattias Ekholm

Considered 7,296 forward lines and 325 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Jason Robertson, Bryan Rust, Alex Tuch
Considered 1,804 forward lines and 120 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Jason Robertson, Alex Tuch
Considered 1,804 forward lines and 120 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Ross Colton, Alex Debrincat, Cutter Gauthier, Anders Lee, Jason Robertson, Alex Tuch
Defense: John Carlson, Tony DeAngelo, Shayne Gostisbehere, Sam Malinski, Jacob Trouba
Considered 319,940 forward lines and 2,850 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Alex Debrincat, Ross Colton, Cutter Gauthier, Anders Lee, Jason Robertson, Alex Tuch
Defense: John Carlson, Tony DeAngelo, Shayne Gostisbeher, Sam Malinski, Jacob Trouba
Considered 319,940 forward lines and 2,850 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Cole Caufield, Jason Robertson, Bryan Rust
Defense: Adam Fox, Neal Pionk, Brady Skjei
Considered 1,804 forward lines and 120 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Cole Caufield, Jason Robertson, Bryan Rust
Defense: Adam Fox, Brady Skjei
Considered 1,804 forward lines and 120 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Cole Caufield, Blake Coleman, Anders Lee, Bryan Rust, Frank Vatrano
Defense: Jalen Chatfield, Ian Cole, Shayne Gostisbehere
Considered 390,425 forward lines and 3,486 defensive pairings.

Included players, left off the olympic roster:
Forwards: Cole Caufield, Blake Coleman, Anders Lee, Bryan Rust, Frank Vatrano
Defense: Jalen Chatfield, Ian Cole, Shayne Gostisbehere, Lane Hutson
Considered 390,425 forward lines and 3,486 defensive pairings.

While the GNN provides interesting output, it is currently limited by the data. I have only utilized data from individual seasons; which is how the data is aggregated and available from MoneyPuck¹.

In general, international rosters are deferential to a players body of work. Because the model utilizes single season data, it is responsive to players having a great year. We can see this impact on the Canadian teams utilizing all available player data from 2025: it's dominated by Colorado defensemen and Utah forwards.

An ideal evolution of this approach would utilze a rolling window of data spanning multiple seasons of games played, potentially weighing more recent games higher. This would better capture both sustained elite performance and current form, provide a more balanced view that aligned with how national team rosters are built.

In the next post, we'll use our GNN embeddings to produce a ranking of the most impactful players in the league.

All posts in this series:
1. The Line Blender: Optimizing Lineups Using MoneyPuck's Expected Goals Percentage (xG%)
2. The Line Blender: Embedding Line Performance Using a GNN
3. The Line Blender: Using a GNN To Produce Olympic Rosters
4. The Line Blender: Using GNN Embeddings for Player Rankings
5. The Line Blender: Olympic Lineups with Announced Rosters
6. The Line Blender: Hypothetical Russian Olympic Lineups

Credit to MoneyPuck lines/pairs and skaters data used in this series. ↩

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