There was plenty of drama along the way, but when the dust settled, the Winter Olympics gave us the gold medal game in men’s hockey that many predicted. The USA and Canada will meet on Sunday to settle things in a re-match of the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, which saw Canada win the inaugural event in the final over the USA — with plenty of bad blood coming to the surface.
The semi-final game for Team USA against Slovakia was relatively uneventful. It was clear that the U.S. had a solid game plan to overwhelm their opponents with forecheck pressure, giving way to a physical game, which Slovakia tried to match, but was unable to.
Dylan Larkin opened the scoring fewer than five minutes into the game. The Slovakia defense lost Larkin during a line change, which led to him taking a long pass from Zach Werenski which he was able to slot home on a wrister. This was followed by Tage Thompson scoring on a one-timer off the powerplay late in the first period, giving Team USA a 2-0 lead entering the second period.
Much of this game was about who could generate more quality looks. Slovakia got shots, but nothing that really threatened Connor Hellebuyck in goal. Meanwhile, there was more offensive patience from the United States than we’ve seen these Olympics, who instead methodically generated excellent chances and made the most of their talent advantage. This shone through later in the second period when Team USA scored two goals in 19 seconds with Jack Hughes showing beautiful puck handling to score, quickly followed by Jack Eichel who was lost in the shuffle in front of net off the ensuing faceoff and scored off the backhand.
Slovakia chose to inexplicably punish goaltender Samuel Hlavaj for the defensive breakdowns in front of him, with replacement Stanislav Škorvánek giving up a quick goal to give Team USA a 5-0 lead entering the third period.
Team USA took their foot off the gas, knowing the game was in the bag, conceding two soft goals and scoring once more to finish with a 6-2 win. One worrying area was an injury to Tage Thompson, who didn’t emerge in the third period out of an abundance of caution — but it’s unclear what the injury was.
The semi-finals weren’t nearly as easy for Canada earlier in the day. Getting into an early 0-2 hole against Finland, they had to fight their way out from a nerve-wracking deficit to finally overwhelm the Fins in the third period and secure a 3-2 win late in the game on a Nathan Mackinnon goal, after it appeared we would be headed to overtime.
Now everything is on the line Sunday. The gold medal, the biggest international prize in the sport — and the chance for revenge from Team USA for a loss in the 4 Nations they felt was unfairly officiated. It will be a stylistic mismatch with Canada boasting a better finesse, on-puck scoring lineup, while Team USA has shown a deeper and tougher forecheck, with more chemistry in the passing game.
It’s going to be one hell of a gold medal game. Get ready for the fireworks.
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