{"id":458435,"date":"2026-02-15T01:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/458435\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T01:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:55:17","slug":"jack-eichel-and-brady-tkachuk-power-the-u-s-past-denmark-6-3-at-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/458435\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Eichel and Brady Tkachuk power the U.S. past Denmark 6-3 at the Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN (AP) \u2014 Jack Eichel scored off his own faceoff win a minute after setting up Brady Tkachuk\u2019s first of two goals the same way, and the U.S.<\/a> rode its top line to a 6-3 defeat of Denmark on Saturday night, keeping pace with also-unbeaten Canada for the top seed in the men\u2019s hockey tournament<\/a> at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

The U.S. bounced back from goaltender Jeremy Swayman getting beaten by a shot from 95 feet away<\/a>, just inside the center red line, 11 minutes in. Swayman won\u2019t have to kick himself too badly for the blunder after some of his most talented teammates stepped up to make the long-distance goal from Nicholas B. Jensen and another soft one from Phillip Bruggisser with 2.6 seconds left in the second period.<\/p>\n

\"UnitedUnited States’ Brady Tkachuk, right, celebrates after scoring his side’s second goal during a preliminary round match of men’s ice hockey between United States and Denmark at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo\/Petr David Josek)(Petr David Josek | AP)<\/p>\n

The goals by Tkachuk and Eichel \u2014 two-thirds of the top line, along with Brady\u2019s brother, Matthew \u2014 midway through the second period tied it and gave the U.S. the lead. Defenseman Noah Hanifin added another when his shot got through Mads Sogaard and trickled over the goal line a bit later, providing some breathing room that proved necessary.<\/p>\n

Jake Guentzel fired a one-timer past Sogaard with a little more than 12 minutes left, and Brady Tkachuk scored his second off a feed from Jack Hughes after Sogaard exited with an injury and was relieved by Frederik Dichow.<\/p>\n

Captain Auston Matthews made the pass to Guentzel, and Zach Werenski \u2014 who accidentally knocked the puck into his own net on Denmark\u2019s first goal, credited to Nick Olesen \u2014 had the secondary assist to get some retribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cU-S-A! U-S-A!\u201d chants from the very red, white and blue crowd filled the arena at the opening puck drop and after all the goals. Some fans in the stands had flags of Greenland, in light of recent rhetoric from U.S. President Donald Trump about taking control of<\/a> the semiautonomous island overseen by Denmark.<\/p>\n

None of the geopolitics reached the ice, and multiple Denmark players last week downplayed<\/a> any connection between the Greenland situation and the game against the U.S. as heavy underdogs.<\/p>\n

After rolling over Latvia 5-1<\/a> in their opener on Thursday night behind two goals from Brock Nelson<\/a>, the Americans have six points in the standings, the same as Canada, going into the final day of the preliminary round.<\/p>\n

The U.S. wraps up round-robin play against Germany, Canada faces 0-2-0 France and if they each win in regulation, the No. 1 spot in the single-elimination knockout round would come down to goal differential.<\/p>\n

Slovakia wins by losing to Sweden by two goals<\/p>\n

Dalibor Dvorsky\u2019s goal with 39 seconds left sent Slovakia to the quarterfinals as the winner of the group in a tiebreaker, even after losing to Sweden 5-3. Slovakia won Group B when Finland crushed host Italy<\/a> 11-0 later in the day because of goal differential among the three tied teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably the best loss I ever had,\u201d Slovakia\u2019s Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a> said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy, but we take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dvorsky, who plays for the St. Louis Blues in the NHL, also called it the best loss of his life. His goal on the power play after a penalty on Lucas Raymond made it happen.<\/p>\n

Sweden, which played much better than it had in its 4-1 loss to archrival Finland<\/a> on Friday, was left to lament a missed opportunity even after winning the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough pill to swallow,\u201d alternate captain Victor Hedman said. \u201cBut we will regroup. We\u2019ll be ready for our next challenge.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Jacob Markstrom stopped 29 of the 32 shots he faced and may have supplanted Filip Gustavsson as Sweden\u2019s starter moving forward. Sweden is locked into the seventh seed and will have to play in the qualification round on Tuesday just to make it into the quarterfinals on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Finland beats host Italy 11-0<\/p>\n

Sebastian Aho, Kaapo Kakko, Joel Kiviranta and captain Mikael Granlund each scored twice for Finland in an 11-0 beatdown of host Italy. The 11-goal margin made it the most lopsided men\u2019s hockey game at the Olympics since 1988, when Sweden beat France 13-2.<\/p>\n

Because of goal differential, the Finns were incentivized to run up the score on an overmatched opponent. At one point, Finland had eight goals and Italy had eight shots.<\/p>\n

Coach Antti Pennanen and his staff told players about the tiebreaker before puck drop.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew that, and then we told them honestly what the situation is,\u201d Pennanen said. \u201cWe had a plan. First plan: win the game. And then do goals as much as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barring something incredibly unforeseen on Sunday, Finland is into the quarterfinals as the No. 4 seed.<\/p>\n

Latvia upsets Germany<\/p>\n

Eduards Tralmaks and Renars Krastenbergs scored just over three minutes apart, and Latvia defeated Germany 4-3. Arturs Silovs of the Pittsburgh Penguins stopped 26 of the 29 shots he faced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a good team,\u201d said Zemgus Girgensons of the Buffalo Sabres, one of 10 NHL players on Latvia\u2019s roster. \u201cWe believed it. I don\u2019t think we go into the game thinking it\u2019s going to be any other way. We came in today thinking we\u2019re going to win. And that\u2019s what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s Philipp Grubauer, who was excellent in an opening win against Denmark when he and his teammates were badly outshot, allowed four goals on 22 shots in the loss.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN (AP) \u2014 Jack Eichel scored off his own faceoff win a minute after setting up Brady Tkachuk\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[536,1107,229,5133,6435,5,1041,4,1108,3878,55184,55644,422,55643,55169],"class_list":{"0":"post-458435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-brady-tkachuk","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-sabres","11":"tag-buffalosabres","12":"tag-denmark","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-jack-eichel","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-sabres","17":"tag-team-usa-hockey","18":"tag-team-usa-hockey-olympics","19":"tag-team-usa-hockey-results","20":"tag-usa-hockey","21":"tag-usa-hockey-olympics","22":"tag-usa-mens-hockey-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116072162366766609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}