“For sure with us,” he said. “We beat Finland and they get to score a couple goals maybe that’s fine, but it’s obviously different when I get to do it, play for Sweden, be a part of it. It’s very, very different.”

Zibanejad has played for Sweden many times, including last season at the 4 Nations Face-Off and the 2025 IIHF World Championship, but he said wearing the distinctive royal blue and vibrant yellow Tre Kronor uniform in the Olympics will simply be different.

“Because it’s an event that involves basically every sport in the world and every sport gets their best to be there, basically,” Zibanejad said. “It doesn’t matter what sport you’re in, a gold medal at the Olympics will always be a gold medal at the Olympics, or a medal at the Olympics will always be a medal at the Olympics. It’s the history of the Olympics and how much it means.”

Zibanejad has won four medals playing for Sweden, including gold at the 2012 IIHF World Junior Championship and the 2018 World Championship.

But he saw 20 years ago what doing it in the Olympics means to the players and the country. He already knows what it would mean to his friends and family back home in Sweden, and, yes, in Finland too.

“I mean, I get a lot more congratulations now making the Olympics than I did after making 4 Nations from people back home,” Zibanejad said. “Friends back home that maybe don’t care as much about my hockey, now they’re still actually like, ‘Oh, you’re going to be an Olympian.’ That itself is huge and a huge honor. They’re happy if I’m happy with hockey and they don’t want anything other than success for me, but they don’t really care about my hockey, you know what I mean? They’re happy when things go well in hockey, but they’re still happy for me if things don’t. But the Olympics, I mean, yeah, it’s the Olympics. It is a big difference.”

* * *

Zibanejad will go to the Olympics next week in a much better frame of mind and with more confidence in his game because of how he’s playing this season than he had when he went to the 4 Nations Face-Off last February.

“I feel like I’m back a little bit more to myself the way I’m playing,” he said.

The Rangers as a team are going through a transition into retooling the roster, but Zibanejad has played well in what has been a difficult season for the team.

He has 51 points, including a team-high 23 goals, in 54 games entering Saturday, when the Rangers play the Pittsburgh Penguins at PPG Paints Arena (3:30 p.m. ET; ABC, SNO, SNE, SN1, TVAS) in their second to last game before the Olympic break.

By comparison, Zibanejad had 37 points, including 11 goals, in 55 games before the break for the 4 Nations Face-Off last season, and finished the season with 20 goals and 62 points in 82 games. It was his worst season statistically since 2017-18, when he had 47 points in 72 games.

“I’m happy for ‘Meek’,” Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. “He’s had a really good year for us. He’s played extremely well consistently on both sides of the puck. The types of goals that he scores are goal-scorer’s goals. … He’s really committed to trying to play the game the right way, the way we’re trying to play. I think he’s personified that most of the year. We’ve challenged him to use his size and his physicality both offensively and defensively and I think he’s really embraced that challenge.”