The NHL could — finally — see its players returning to the Olympic stage for the first time in over a decade.

After missing out on both the 2018 and 2022 Olympics, the top brass at the NHL and NHLPA appear to be working together to send their talent to the 2026 games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly has indicated that the league is working towards the return of the World Cup of Hockey in 2028, but also hosting an in-season international tournament in the 2024-25 season, held in February 2025.

"So if we do a '25 international tournament, we do the '26 Olympics, the '28 World Cup of Hockey, the '30 Olympics, the '32 World Cup of Hockey, and so on," Daly said at the European Player Media Tour on Wednesday, as per NHL.com's Dan Rosen. "That's the goal."

NHL players participated in every Olympic Games from 1998 through 2014 but missed the 2018 edition after a deal was unable to be reached between the league and the IOC. In 2022, the league planned to send its players to the Beijing Games, but pulled out after heavy COVID-19 measures and a rising case count caused the NHL to back off.

The 2026 Olympics are scheduled to take place from February 6 to February 2022 in Italy.

"I don't know exactly what form it will take," Daly said of the tournament planned for February 2025. "The goal is to make it an international competition of some sort. It's going to obviously be heavily NHL-centric in terms of the player base, maybe entirely NHL. We'll see what form it takes, but that's something we're working on with the Players' Association."

However, Daly added one of the biggest hurdles the league currently faces is the question about Russian teams, which are currently banned from competing in all major IIHF events due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Sixty-two Russian players played a game in the NHL in the 2022-23 season.

"That continues to be an unknown that we’re all trying to navigate around and through and that certainly affects the World Cup property," Daly added. "The IOC has made public statements that indicate to me that they're going to try very hard to include Russian athletes on some basis. Whether it's on the basis they’ve included them in the past where they're not really playing for a flag but they are playing and participating, I think that is probably a model they will pursue."