{"id":462706,"date":"2026-02-19T00:19:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/462706\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T00:19:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:19:26","slug":"why-rasmus-andersson-isnt-playing-today-for-sweden-in-olympics-vs-team-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/462706\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Rasmus Andersson isn’t playing today for Sweden in Olympics vs. Team USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sweden is right back on the ice a day after winning its first knockout round game at the Winter Olympics in men’s hockey.<\/p>\n

The Swedes get to take on Team USA in a quarterfinal, with one team advancing to the medal rounds and the other going home.<\/p>\n

That makes one Swedish lineup decision on Wednesday particularly strange: Rasmus Andersson isn’t playing.<\/p>\n

The former Calgary Flames<\/a> defenseman, recently traded to the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>, is a scratch for the second consecutive day.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Jake Canter had a 20% chance to live, but he just won an Olympic medal<\/a><\/p>\n

He’s joined by Marcus Johansson, who played Tuesday but sits Wednesday in favor of Jesper Bratt.<\/p>\n

Sweden has seven defensemen available: Gustav Forsling, Rasmus Dahlin, Victor Hedman, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Philip Broberg, Erik Karlsson and Hampus Lindholm.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0A dog stole the show at the finish line of cross country skiing<\/a><\/p>\n

Why isn’t Rasmus Andersson playing today?<\/p>\n

Andersson’s absence hasn’t been explained in the English-language media.<\/p>\n

The major change in how Sweden has operated since earlier in the tournament is that Ekman-Larsson is now seeing substantial ice time. He was dressed but got zero shifts in Sweden’s opener, but he’s since worked himself into a key role.<\/p>\n

Somehow, the depth chart shifting has boxed out Andersson, who is a solid playmaker from the blue line.<\/p>\n

Sweden will hope to pull the upset on Wednesday, and if that happens, Andersson will have to make a late push for inclusion back into the lineup going forward.<\/p>\n

More Olympics news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sweden is right back on the ice a day after winning its first knockout round game at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[895,26,5294,896,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-462706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary-flames","8":"tag-calgary","9":"tag-calgary-flames","10":"tag-calgaryflames","11":"tag-flames","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116094432951236809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462706","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=462706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}