Canadiens' Juraj Slafkovsky scores pair in Olympic men's hockey opener

Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky scored twice and added an assist for Slovakia on Wednesday in the opening game for men’s hockey at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy.

Slovakia beat Finland 4-1 in the Group B preliminary-round matchup.

Slafkovsky scored the tournament’s first goal at 7:45 of the first period. In nets for Finland was Nashville Predators goaltender Juuse Saros.

“That’s what you do for an encore,” said CBC play-by-play announcer Chris Cuthbert, in reference to Slafkovsky’s performance at the previous Olympics. The 6-foot-3, 225-pound forward’s coming-out party as a prospect was as a 17-year-old during the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, where he scored seven goals in seven games for Slovakia.

Slafkovsky played 20:07 and had a plus-2 differential.

In 57 games this season, the 21-year-old first overall pick by the Canadiens in the 2022 NHL Draft has a career-high 21 goals, and with 47 points is six away from matching his total from a year ago in 79 games.

His Habs teammate Oliver Kapanen was named to Team Finland, but was a healthy scratch for Wednesday’s game.

Slafkovsky and Kapanen are two of four Montreal Canadiens players partaking in the 2026 Games. Nick Suzuki (Canada) and Alexandre Texier (France) are the other two.

Canadiens’ Juraj Slafkovsky scores pair in Olympic men’s hockey opener

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