Qualification for the men's tournament at the 2022 Winter Olympics was determined by the IIHF World Ranking following the 2019 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships. The host along with the top eight teams in the world ranking received automatic berths into the Olympics, while all other teams have an opportunity to qualify for the remaining three spots in the Olympics.

Qualified teams {| class="wikitable" !Event !Date !Location !Vacancies !Qualified |- |Hosts |17 May 2018 | Copenhagen |align=center|1

|2019 IIHF World Ranking |31 March 2016 – 26 May 2019 | Bratislava and Košice |align=center|8

|rowspan=3|Final qualification tournaments |rowspan=3|26–29 August 2021 | Bratislava |align=center|1

| Riga |align=center|1

| Oslo |align=center|1

! Total !! colspan=2| !! 12 !!

Notes

Qualification seeding To qualify directly, a nation had to be ranked in the top eight following the 2019 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships. Using the IIHF World Ranking points system, the current year received full value, and each preceding year was worth 25% less. The following is a ranking based on points that were accumulated toward Olympic qualification of all countries participating in 2019.

Points were earned based on overall finish in 2019: Place 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ... Points 1200 1160 1120 1100 1060 1040 1020 1000 960 940 920 900 880 860 840 820 800 780 760 740 ...

    Qualified directly to Olympic Tournament     Entered qualifying in the final round     Entered qualifying in the pre-qualification round 3     Entered qualifying in the pre-qualification round 2     Entered qualifying in the pre-qualification round 1

Qualifying seedTeamWC 2019(100%)WC 2018(75%)OLY 2018(75%)WC 2017(50%)WC 2016(25%)Total 1 1160 1100 1120 1160 1200 3705 2 1120 1040 1200 1120 1120 3640 3 1200 1060 1040 1100 1160 3615 4 1060 1200 1060 1200 1040 3615 5 1100 1020 1100 1020 1060 3465 6 1020 1120 1020 1060 1100 3430 7 1040 920 1160 1000 1020 3355 8 1000 1160 940 1040 920 3325 9 960 960 920 860 960 3040 10 940 1000 860 940 880 3025 11 900 880 1000 920 940 3005 12 920 940 800 900 1000 2925 13 840 900 840 960 860 2840 14 780 840 880 880 900 2735 15 820 860 780 800 740 2635 16 860 780 760 820 780 2620 17 760 820 900 780 720 2620 18 740 720 960 840 800 2620 19 800 760 820 760 820 2570 20 880 800 660 680 660 2480 21 720 740 700 720 840 2370 22 660 700 740 740 760 2300 23 640 660 720 660 700 2180 24 700 680 560 640 640 2110 25 600 620 680 700 680 2095 26 620 640 600 620 600 2010 27 680 600 580 560 580 1990 28 580 560 640 580 560 1910 29 540 580 620 600 620 1895 30 560 520 540 520 500 1740 31 500 440 520 460 540 1585 Host 480 500 440 440 460 1520 32 420 460 480 480 480 1485 33 440 400 460 400 400 1385 520 540 – 540 440 1305 34 360 360 500 360 420 1290 460 480 – 500 520 1200 35 320 300 420 300 340 1095 380 320 400 280 0 1060 400 420 – 420 380 1020 340 380 – 380 360 905 36 300 280 – 340 320 760 37 260 340 – 320 280 745 220 240 – 240 300 595 38 240 260 – 220 – 545 39 180 220 – 260 240 535 280 200 – – – 430 40 200 160 – 200 – 420 41 140 180 – 0 260 340 42 120 140 – – – 225 43 160 – – – – 160 44 100 – – – – 100 Teams with no seeding chose not to participate in Olympic qualifying.

Pre-qualification Round 1 Eight teams began the qualification process in two tournaments. The winners of each tournament advanced to round 2 as qualifiers ten and eleven, where qualifier ten was the winner with the higher qualification seeding.

Group N Games were played in Kockelscheuer, Luxembourg from 8 to 10 November 2019.

All times are local (UTC+1).

Group O Due to unrest in Hong Kong this tournament was moved to Sanya, China, and was played from 7 to 10 November 2019.

All times are local (UTC+8).

Pre-qualification Round 2 Twelve countries played in three tournaments to determine qualifiers for the next round. Each tournament winner was ranked by their qualification seeding and entered the next round as qualifier seven, eight, or nine.

Group K

All times are local (UTC+2).

Group L

All times are local (UTC+1).

The game was originally supposed to be played on 15 December 2019 but was stopped after a scoreless first period because of problems with the ice surface.

Group M

All times are local (UTC+1).

Pre-qualification Round 3 Group G

All times are local (UTC+1).

Group H

All times are local (UTC+6).

Group J

All times are local (UTC±0).

Final qualification The tournaments were scheduled to take place from 27 to 30 August 2020, but were moved to 26 to 29 August 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Group D The tournament was held at the Ondrej Nepela Arena in Bratislava, Slovakia.

All times are local (UTC+2).

Group E The tournament was played at the Arēna Rīga in Riga, Latvia.

All times are local (UTC+3).

Group F The tournament was played at the Jordal Amfi in Oslo, Norway.

All times are local (UTC+2).

References