Finally, a true test for Team USA.
After coasting through the group round of the men’s Olympic hockey tournament, Jack Hughes and company will face a team with as many NHL players as its previous three opponents combined.
That’s because Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom stopped 16 of 17 shots and Sweden’s all-NHL roster made short work of the Latvians on Tuesday afternoon, winning 5-1 in the final qualifying match of the day.
Detroit Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond picked up three assists and the Swedes
got goals from five different players to set up what, at least on paper, looks to be the best matchup of the quarterfinals.
The Americans and Swedes will play at 3 p.m. EST on Wednesday.
Markstrom got Tuesday afternoon’s start despite allowing a late goal to Slovakia’s Dalibor Dvorsky on Saturday. That goal gave Slovakia the qualifying round-bye as Group B winner by goal differential.
That didn’t stop Sweden coach Sam Hallam from coming back with Markstrom and now he has quite the choice to make for Wednesday’s matchup with Team USA: Does he start the 36-year-old Markstrom in back-to-back games? Or does he go back to Minnesota Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson, who’d started the first two games of group play for the Swedes.
Ironically, Gustavsson was benched in favor of Markstrom in the final group game because he’d struggled early in a win over Italy (two goals on the first four shots) and a loss to Finland (two goals on the first six shots).
Markstrom, who has had similar issues with the Devils in the NHL this season, kept the Latvians off the board for the first 30 minutes while his teammates staked him to a 3-0 lead.
Sweden got the only goals it needed just 41 seconds apart from Adrian Kempe and Gabriel Landeskog midway through the first, and Filip Forsberg made it a three-goal lead at 7:36 of the second.
Latvia’s Eduards Tralmaks picked up the lone Latvian goal at 10:47 of the second to cut the Swedish lead to 3-1, but that was as close as the Latvians would get.
Mika Zibanejad and William Nylander scored goals for Sweden in the third.
Switzerland 3, Italy 0
Nico Hischier scored his first goal of the Olympics and assisted on two others in Switzerland’s shutout win over host Italy.
Timo Meier picked up his second and third assists of the tournament.
With the win, Switzerland advanced to the quarterfinals and will face Finland at 12:10 pm EST, Wednesday.
Czechia 3, Denmark 2
David Kampf and Roman Cervanka scored goals 1:09 apart midway through the second period and Czechia held on to beat Denmark.
Marty Necas also scored for the Czechs.
Czechia’s reward for ousting the Danes is a quarterfinal matchup with top seed Canada at 10:40 am EST, Wednesday.
Germany 5, France 1
Leon Draisaitl scored a goal and set-up two others and Tim Stutzle had two assists in Germany’s win over France.
Frederik Tiffels, JJ Peterka, Josh Samanski, and Nico Sturm had the other German goals.
Forty-year-old Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, who played 700 games during his NHL career, scored for France.
Germany will take on Simon Nemec and Slovakia at 6:10 am EST, Wednesday.
Your Thoughts
Not much intrigue in the qualifying matchups today, and tomorrow’s undercard is pretty underwhelming. But that USA-Sweden main event. … A well-rested Team USA should be favored over a Swedish team forced to play back-to-back games. That said, Connor Hellebuyck is a choke artist and the Americans aren’t exactly battle-tested facing Latvia, Denmark, and Germany. Playing a Swedish team that dresses a full NHL lineup is going to be a considerable step up in difficulty level. … Oh, and I could have sworn the Devils had two Swedish Olympians but I only saw one today. Wonder what happened to the other one. I vaguely recall he used to be pretty good.
