The NHL players are back in the Winter Olympics for the first time since the 2014 Sochi games, and that means we get our first fully functional best-on-best tournament in over a decade. It is going to be thrilling,
compelling hockey, and it all begins on Wednesday.
There are three primary rooting interests I have for this tournament. They are, in order:
- Nobody get hurt. This can not be emphasized enough.
- Some sort of narrative-driving performance from the United States, where either they prove the critics wrong and Bill Guerin gets to take a victory lap screaming “everybody is dumb except me,” or a 2006-type embarrassment where they just totally wet the bed and everybody gets to tell Bill Guerin how everybody is smart except for him. Simply winning a Bronze or Silver medal would be boring. Go big or home. Win Gold or get embarrassed. If you win Gold, you win Gold. If you get embarrassed, you might cause some soul-searching that could lead to gold in the next winter Olympics.
- Sidney Crosby win to add to his already spectacular legacy.
Seems reasonable.
The Penguins have four players participating in the tournament this year with Crosby (Canada), Erik Karlsson (Sweden), Rickard Rakell (Sweden) and Arturs Silovs (Latvia) all in Italy.
So what is ahead for them and their respective teams this week?
Let’s look at it.
The round-robin/group play portion of the tournament takes place through Sunday, and Sweden will be the first team with a Penguins player (Rakell and Karlsson) in action.
Sweden’s first game is on Wednesday against host nation Italy, and nothing about that seems like a fair fight. The Italian team is easily the worst team in the field and will be lucky to be competitive in any of their games.
Rakell opened practice skating on Sweden’s third line next to Mika Zibanejad and Elias Pettersson, while Karlsson was on the third-defense pairing alongside Philip Broberg.
I actually like this Sweden team a lot, and might even go as far as to pick them to win Gold. There just is not a weakness anywhere. Their forwards are not quite on the same level as the Canadian or American teams, but they are still good. They also might have the best defensive lineup from top-to-bottom in the entire tournament, while also having three solid goaltending options. You can probably find a weakness for every other team.
After playing Italy on Wednesday, Sweden plays what might be the most anticipated game of the preliminary round on Friday when they go against Finland.
They complete group play on Saturday against Slovakia.
Sweden is pretty clearly one of the top three or four gold medal contenders here, and that should make them a favorite in the group. That game against Finland likely determines who gets the top spot here.
Next on the list is Canada and the most prominent Penguins player — Crosby.
Crosby, who was named captain of the Canadian team, opened practice skating on the third line between Mitch Marner and Mark Stone, which is an utterly fascinating trio, and I’m not sure how well they mesh with Crosby’s preferred playing style of having fast north-south guys next to him. But Stone and Marner are good two-way players, and Stone especially is a great defensive presence on his wing. It is also a positively staggering third-line in terms of talent, indicating just how good Canada’s forward depth is and how good their top-tier players are.
Canada opens play on Thursday against Czechia and then plays Switzerland on Friday before concluding group play on Sunday against France.
The Swiss have been a notorious thorn in the side of Canadian Olympic teams over the years, and this Swiss team is pretty good. So that is going to be a compelling matchup, and Czechia will not be a pushover. That is a tough group for the Canadians, but they should still be able to get through it at the top. There just might be a couple of close games in there.
Then we have Silovs and Latvia.
Goaltending is the one potential strength of the Latvian team, and it remains to be seen how much Silovs will play, if at all. Columbus Blue Jackets goalie Elvis Merzlikins figures to be the No. 1 goalie going into the tournament.
Latvia opens tournament play on Thursday against the United States, before playing Germany on Saturday and Denmark on Sunday.
Latvia is probably the worst of the four teams in this group, and it would probably be a mild upset to see them win any of their games.
