Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski will be an Olympian

Team USA announced their preliminary roster for next month's Winter Olympic Games in Italy. Barring any injuries, these are the 25 players who will represent the United States:

While there are a few surprises named to this roster-and a few snubs (hello, Jason Robertson?)-we knew Zach was going to be on this team, unless something drastically changed. There wasn't really any doubt.

Last season, the native of Grosse Point, Michigan, finished second in Norris Trophy voting. He had a terrific year, scoring 23 goals and 82 points in 81 games.

He also starred for team USA at the Four Nations Faceoff, where he led the entire tournament in scoring with 6 points (all assists). Look at the two names that finished right behind him, if you want any idea how good he was.

Zach then doubled down, representing his country at the 2025 IIHF World Championships in Switzerland. He helped lead the Americans to their first gold medal in that tournament since 1933.

Picked up right where he left off.

This season, he hasn't done anything to discourage team USA from taking him back overseas. Though he's missed the last two weeks after taking a puck off of his foot in Los Angeles, he's off to another torrid scoring pace this year.

Zach has 14 goals and 40 points in 35 games, leaving him 9 points clear of second on the Blue Jackets in scoring. Reminder: that's amongst all players, not just defensemen. And he's missed the last 4 games.

He's tied with guys like Mitch Marner and Sebastian Aho, sitting just outside the top-30 in scoring league-wide. His points total is tied with Lane Hutson for second in the league amongst blue liners, just 5 back of Cale Makar.

Werenski has emerged as a superstar in the NHL. He deserves to be mentioned in that very top tier of players. In fact, an argument could be made for him as the top defenseman in the NHL right now.

When you put together his combination of size, skating, scoring ability, and reliability, I would be hard pressed to make an argument for any single defenseman that I would rather have.

He does it all while continuously playing almost 27 minutes per night, in all situations and against all competition. Simply put, there was no way for team USA to leave Zach Werenski off of this roster.

He has proven his case as one of the top defensemen in the world. We'll be cheering him on as he looks to add an Olympic gold medal to his trophy case next month.