Martin Fehervary is slated to get his 2024-25 season underway quite early as he was one of 25 players called up by Team Slovakia for 2026 Winter Olympic qualifiers at the end of this month.
However, according to NHL.com’s Nick Cotsonika, that early start may be in jeopardy due to some offseason health issues. Cotsonika relayed a report on the matter to fellow NHL.com writer Tom Gulitti while Fehervary and Cotsonika were at the NHL European Player Media Tour in Prague this week.
“I would like to [play],” Fehervary said. “We’ll see. I’m still a little bit dealing with some health issues, but we’ll see how the thing’s going. So far it looks good. [It’s] nothing major. I’m practicing, but it’s before the season and we talked with the Caps and if I’m not going to be 100 percent, I shouldn’t go. So, we’ll see.”
Slovakia is set to play in a round-robin tournament to qualify for one of the 12 spots at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy. Fehervary’s hometown of Bratislava will host the set of qualifying games from August 29 through September 1.
Fehervary missed a swath of games for the Washington Capitals last season with three different injuries, playing just 66 games over the whole campaign. The most serious of the three, a lower-body injury suffered in mid-February, kept him out of action for 10 games.
The 24-year-old defender is one of his nation’s most important players as he regularly leads the team in ice time, playing at all three strengths. Slovakia will already be without Juraj Slafkovsky and Erik Cernak due to their NHL teams not releasing them.
Fehervary is set for his fourth full campaign with the Capitals in 2024-25. Washington has yet to set the exact dates for its 2024 Training Camp but it should come a couple weeks after the tournament wraps up in Slovakia.
