MILAN \u2014 Victor Hedman was one of the most outspoken stars over the past decade in hoping the NHL would come back to the Olympics.<\/p>\n
His passion for the subject was deep. So to see him sitting on the bench Wednesday, unable to play after pulling a groin in warmup, was a brutal sight. His one and only Olympics ended in heart-crushing fashion.<\/p>\n
Losing 2-1 in overtime to Team USA to end their Olympics was crushing enough. To see the 35-year-old Hedman have to pull himself out and end his Olympic dream that way? The look on his Swedish teammates\u2019 faces Wednesday night said it all.<\/p>\n
He is beloved in that dressing room. One of their great leaders. And they were in agony for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cTalk about a heartbreaker,\u201d Gabriel Landeskog, the captain, said after the game. \u201cWe knew there was no place he\u2019d rather be than on the ice to compete with us. To have to sit out, that\u2019s, that\u2019s \u2026 I was hurting for him. I really was. And I still am. I know how long he\u2019d been working towards this and looking forward toward this, that sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hedman himself wasn\u2019t brought to the media after the game. The Tampa Bay Lightning captain is not one to ever duck the media, but in this circumstance, one can certainly understand why he wasn\u2019t available.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough blow for us,\u201d veteran defenseman Erik Karlsson said of Hedman. \u201cIt also speaks to his character to be able to make that decision on his own. That he couldn\u2019t perform at the level that he felt that he needed to, to be an improvement on our team. A really tough one. It sucks that we couldn\u2019t do more to give him a chance to play another game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pained faces of every Swedish player spoke volumes. The silver medalists from Sochi in 2014 had high hopes here in Milan. They pushed hard in the third period against Team USA on Wednesday, and it paid off when Mika Zibanejad tied it late with goalie Jacob Markstr\u00f6m pulled for the extra attacker.<\/p>\n
The Swedes were feeling it right then and there. They thought they were destined.<\/p>\n
But Quinn Hughes had the dagger in overtime for Team USA.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust empty,\u201d Zibanejad said after the game. \u201cIt\u2019s tough. I thought we pushed. We pushed through the whole third and, obviously, get the tying goal. Get ourselves to overtime. To see the puck go in for them and you know it\u2019s over, it\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Swedes went from the high of tying it late to having their hearts ripped out in overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeartbreaking, really,\u201d Landeskog said. \u201cIt felt like we were in control, like we were going to tie it up. It was just a matter of time, and eventually we do. And after having been on the gas for the majority of the third period, it felt like we had the momentum. But also knowing it\u2019s three-on-three and could go either way. It didn\u2019t go our way, simple as that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try a one-timer in the O-zone and miss it, they get possession of it and one of the best defensemen in the world with the puck, I give him a little too much space, and he puts the perfect shot behind Marky. Marky had been great all night. He didn\u2019t give them anything. It was going to have to be a perfect shot to beat him tonight. \u2026 But yeah, it\u2019s a heart-breaker. It\u2019s hard to sum it up like this right after.\u201d<\/p>\n
A loss to Finland in the group stage and a goal-difference tiebreaker sent Sweden into a gold-medal-level quarterfinal matchup with Team USA after beating Latvia in the qualifying round. Someone was going to go home way too early between two powerhouse teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sucks,\u201d Karlsson said. \u201cOur memories from the last time (in Sochi), the guys that played there, were very fond. Very good memories, and we brought that into this tournament. We had very high hopes for our group in this tournament. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t reach that potential. That\u2019s just the hard truth and the reality. But at the same time, I think we should consider ourselves to be amongst the best. This time we didn\u2019t deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karlsson wasn\u2019t ready to blame the format. They came here to beat top teams like the U.S. and didn\u2019t get it done.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe group stage can be a little fluky sometimes, and obviously we didn\u2019t play our best hockey there and put ourselves in this position,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, we lost when it mattered the most, whether it was the quarterfinal or further along the way. We came here to play against teams like the USA, and we gave ourselves a chance today, but it wasn\u2019t our day.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Karlsson and Landeskog, who knows what the future holds as far as playing in another Olympics in four years? Team Sweden will look different in four years on some level.<\/p>\n
That is part of what hurt so much for the veteran core on this night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho knows what the future holds?\u201d said Landeskog. \u201cWho knows when we\u2019ll get this opportunity again \u2014 and if? But at the end of the day, I\u2019ve talked all along about staying present, being right here, right now. I\u2019m not going to run away from the bitterness and the heartache of this. I\u2019m going to sit in it for a little bit and accept it for what it is. And the sun will rise tomorrow again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Victor Hedman was one of the most outspoken stars over the past decade in hoping the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[5,189,54125,4,2602,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-463054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-lightning","10":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-olympics","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116095820965013235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463054","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=463054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}