Jagr headlines Czech Olympic squad

Vokoun succeeds Hasek as nation's No. 1 goalie

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 | 4:07 PM ET

By Justin Piercy, CBC Sports

Jaromir Jagr headlines the Czech Republic Olympic men's hockey roster, which was released on Tuesday. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)

Jaromir Jagr is in, Dominik Hasek is out for the Czech Republic's Olympic team heading to Vancouver in February.

Jagr, 37, has spent the last two seasons with Avangard Omsk of the KHL and is the only returning member of the 1998 gold medal-winning team in Nagano.

Despite this, the 23-man squad announced by coach Vladimir Ruzicka that will be familiar to most NHL fans, with 16 NHL regulars in the mix.

Among them are Patrik Elias of New Jersey, Nashville's Martin Erat and Tomas Plekanec of Montreal. The team also includes Tomas Fleischmann (Washington), Martin Havlat (Minnesota), David Krejci (Boston) and Milan Michalek (Ottawa).

Former NHLers Petr Cajanek and Josef Vasicek were also tapped by Ruzicka, who said he wanted Elias to captain the team, with Jagr and Tomas Kaberle to be his alternates.

"For our hockey, success mean a medal," Ruzicka said. "We travel [to Vancouver] to get a medal. Anything else is a failure."

Notably absent from that group of forwards are Jiri Hudler, formerly of the Detroit Red Wings, Vinny Prospal of the New York Rangers, Michal Frolik of the Florida Panthers and Milan Hejduk of the Colorado Avalanche, who Ruzicka said "has a knee problem."

Prospal underwent arthroscopic knee surgery, it was announced on Monday, and is expected to miss as much as three weeks of action for his club.

Hudler jumped to the KHL after last season to play with Dynamo Moscow, while Frolik had 11 goals and 23 points in 40 games with the Panthers so far this season.

Tomas Vokoun will take over as the Czech's top netminder. The Florida Panther will take over for Dominik Hasek, who was left off the squad after capturing gold in 1998 before going down to injury in the first game of the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Vokoun will be backed up by Ondrej Pavelec of the Atlanta Thrashers and Jakub Stepanek of the Czech club Vitkovice.

The blue-line corps is headed by Kaberle of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Filip Kuba of the Ottawa Senators. They are joined by Pavel Kubina (Atlanta), Jan Hejda (Columbus), Roman Polak (St. Louis), Marek Zidlicky (Minnesota), and Zbynek Michalek (Phoenix).

Miroslav Blatak is the lone European club defender named to the team.

Defencemen to miss the cut were Roman Hamrlik and Jaroslav Spacek of the Montreal Canadiens as well as Michal Rozsival of the New York Rangers.