It was a rather unfortunate opening day of men’s ice hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics for Nashville Predators fans.

Filip Forsberg was surprisingly demoted to the 13th forward position in Sweden’s game against Itlay and Juuse Saros was on the losing end of Finland’s 4-1 result to Slovakia.

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In his Olympic debut, Saros gave up three goals on 24 shots and made 21 saves. Slovakia’s final goal was an empty net.

Juraj Slafkovsky opened the scoring 7:45 into the game, deking Saros out and causing him to go down, which allowed Slafkovsky to put the puck into a wide-open net.

Finland tied the game early in the second period, but Slovakia went on to score three unanswered goals in the third period.

A shot from Martin Gernat came off of Finland’s Sebastian Aho, and Dalibor Dvorsky was there to put away the rebound on Saros’s five-hole.

The third goal came on the power play as Slafkovsky went bardown on Saros for his second goal of the game.

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Saros is now 0-3-0 in best-on-best tournaments as he went 0-2 in the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Erika Haula also logged 10:39 of ice time on 17 shifts and two shots on goal in his Olympic debut with Finland.

In the second game, the hockey world was shocked to see Forsberg placed in the 13th forward position, which is often the extra forward carried and usually scratched.

The Predators alternate captain logged just one shift for 1:07 of ice time in Sweden’s 5-2 win over Italy.

It’s speculated that Sweden is resting Forsberg for bigger games, but it’s head-scratching that it chose to bench the player who is 16th all-time amongst Swedes in the NHL and has 47 points in 57 games this season.

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Switzerland also announced that Roman Josi will be its captain for the Olympics.

Feb. 12 (Thursday): Switzerland (Josi) vs. France at 5:10 a.m. CST.

Feb 13 (Friday): Finland (Haula & Saros) vs. Sweden (Forsberg) at 5:10 a.m. CST; Switzerland (Josi) vs. Canada at 2:10 p.m. CST.

Feb. 14 (Saturday): Sweden (Forsberg) vs. Slovakia at 5:10 a.m. CST; Finland (Saros & Haula) vs. Italy at 9:40 a.m. CST.

Feb. 15 (Sunday): Switzerland (Josi) vs. Czechia at 5:10 a.m. CST.