Detroit Red Wings Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider will try to keep their respective country’s Olympic hopes alive Tuesday during the qualification round at Milano Cortina.
Raymond and Sweden face Latvia at 3 p.m. ET (USA Network and Peacock). The winner advances to play the United States, with Detroit’s Dylan Larkin, in the quarterfinals on Wednesday (3 p.m., NBC and Peacock).
Seider and Germany meet France at 6 a.m. ET (Peacock). The winner plays Slovakia Wednesday in the quarterfinals (6 a.m. ET, Peacock).
Raymond leads Sweden with five points in three games (goal, four assists) and on Saturday became just the fourth Swede to record three points in an Olympic game during a 5-3 victory over Slovakia (joining Nicklas Backstrom, former Red Wing Daniel Alfredsson and Mats Sundin).
However, Raymond’s slashing penalty on ex-Red Wing Tomas Tatar with 39 seconds remaining in regulation led to a power-play goal that cost Sweden a bye into the quarterfinals. It dropped Sweden (minus-1) behind Slovakia (plus-1) and Finland (even) in goals differential in games between the teams that tied for the top spot in Group B at 2-1, giving the other two nations byes into the quarters. Had Slovakia not scored the late goal Sweden would have finished first in goals differential.
“It’s unnecessary, of course,” Raymond told Swedish website Aftonbladet. “It’s not fun. The guys played a great game the whole game. You don’t want to put the team in a situation like that.”
Sweden is a heavy favorite against Latvia but must now play four games in six days to reach Sunday’s gold medal contest.
Seider has one assist in three games for Germany (1-2) and remains a workhorse, averaging 26:46 of ice time per game.
Larkin has one assist while averaging 14:07 in three games for the U.S. (3-0), which is seeded second in the quarterfinals behind Canada (3-0), which will play the winner of Czechia/Denmark. The other quarterfinal pits Finland vs. the winner of the Switzerland/Italy qualifier.