The men’s Olympic hockey tournament continues — and concludes — this week with the knockout phase and medal rounds starting on Tuesday.
So far, it has been a pretty good tournament for the Pittsburgh Penguins representatives, and there is a good chance that at least one of them returns with some sort of a medal.
Their progress so far….
- Penguins Captain (and also Team Canada captain) Sidney Crosby has continued to play at a dominant level, even at age 38, and already has six points through the first three games of the tournament. That includes a pair of goals as Canada cruised through the group stage, outscoring their opponents by a 20-3 margin, and right into the quarterfinal. Crosby is tied for the second-leading scorer in the tournament.
- Team Sweden was probably one of the bigger disappointments of the group stage, finishing in third place behind Slovakia and Finland. Defenseman Erik Karlsson has three assists and nine shots on goal through the first three games, while forward Rickard Rakell has an assist and eight shots on goal. It’s not that Sweden has been BAD, they still won two of their three group stage games, but the loss to Finland was decisive and allowing a late goal to Slovakia, thanks in part to a bad penalty and a bad goal against, to lose the tiebreaker in the group was a tough result.
- Goalie Arturs Silovs took over the net for Latvia after a tough start for Elvis Merzlikins, and then led his country to a win with a big performance against Germany. He struggled early in their next game against Denmark, but finished strong to at least keep them in it.
So what is ahead for all of them this week?
It is a waiting game for Crosby and Canada as they will play the winner of Tuesday’s Czechia-Denmark game in the quarterfinals.
They will be heavy favorites no matter which team it is, and it should be another emphatic win no matter who they face. Canada already beat Czechia 5-0 in the group stage, while Denmark doesn’t really have much high-level NHL talent that is going to be able to hang with what is basically an All-Star team. Canada has looked like the best team in the field so far — not really a surprise — and should not see any sort of a serious test until the medal round.
Crosby, meanwhile, is just three wins away from winning his third Olympic gold medal and adding another major accomplishment to his resume. If he gets it, he will be the first player to ever win three Stanley Cups and three Olympic gold medals.
He will also be a big part of it. Not that it is a surprise given what we are still seeing from him with the Penguins, but he remains one of Canada’s best players and one of the best players in the world. He is defying aging curves.
As for the Karlsson, Rakell and Silovs trio, they are going head-to-head on Tuesday for the chance to play the United States later in the week.
It remains to be seen if Silovs will get the start, but he has pretty much held the Latvian net since the opening period of the first game. It has been a mixed bag of results for him, and Sweden would be his toughest test yet as a starter in this tournament. If he helps pull off an upset there he would be a Latvian hockey legend.
It is still surprising that Sweden is even in this position where it needs to play in the opening playoff round. They were the team I was leaning toward gold with when the tournament began. They SHOULD beat Latvia, and assuming they do, that sets up a monster quarterfinal matchup between Sweden and the United States.
That is also a potential nightmare quarterfinal matchup for both teams because it means one of the top-three gold medal favorites from the start of the tournament is going to leave Italy without even having the chance to play for a medal. It would be a massive failure for either one of them. That is a good way to add some extra intrigue to a quarterfinal game.
The sub-plot to that game, as if it needed one, would be the Erik Karlsson revenge game against Mike Sullivan.
Even though Karlsson has not really said anything directly about Sullivan, it is pretty clear the two did not see eye-to-eye on things. It is not hard to read between the lines on some of Karlsson’s comments this season (and even going back to the 2024-25 season when Sullivan was still in Pittsburgh) and see how much better he has played away from Sullivan to realize it was just a bad fit for everybody.
Will Karlsson get his revenge?
Will Crosby get his next gold by going through either his former coach (Sullivan) or current teammates (Karlsson or Rakell)?
Will the United States win its first Olympic gold medal since 1980?
The next week will be fun to watch no matter the results.
