{"id":465198,"date":"2026-02-21T01:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/465198\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:08:19","slug":"usa-to-face-canada-for-olympic-gold-after-overpowering-slovakia-in-mens-hockey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/465198\/","title":{"rendered":"USA to face Canada for Olympic gold after overpowering Slovakia in men\u2019s hockey"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILAN \u2014 Jack Hughes took the Zach Werenski feed between the penalty boxes, pivoted toward the net and went to work.<\/p>\n

He carried the puck into the offensive zone and pulled up at the half-wall, surveying his options as two Slovak defenders stared him down. Not finding an open passing lane, despite a few shoulder shimmies, Hughes executed a quick give-and-go with Werenski at the blue line, freeing up some space for him in the high slot. Tomas Tatar made a run at him, and Hughes turned him inside out before sliding to the left circle and unleashing a nasty wrister through defenseman Martin Feh\u00e9rv\u00e1ry and past goaltender Samuel Hlavaj, who could only flinch as the puck sailed by high on the far side.<\/p>\n

The American bench erupted. Hughes went down to one knee to celebrate. His teammates ran to join him. Yes, it seems like Team USA, a self-described \u201cunfinished product\u201d throughout this tournament, might just be a finished one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our game is peaking at the right time,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

Bring on Canada.<\/p>\n

Because the matchup hockey fans have been waiting 12 years for is finally here.<\/p>\n

The United States easily dispatched Slovakia in a 6-2 semifinal blowout on Friday night at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, setting up a superpower showdown with Canada in Sunday\u2019s Olympic gold medal game. The biggest matchup on the world\u2019s biggest stage, two All-Star behemoths jockeying for global hockey supremacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s best on best, it\u2019s what every American and Canadian grows up watching, grows up caring about,\u201d Matthew Tkachuk said. \u201cThis is the pinnacle of the sport. This is as good as it gets. And a rivalry that\u2019s as good as it gets. There will be not one TV without this game on in the United States and Canada, and that should get you fired up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thought of Connor McDavid matching up against Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon lining up against Jack Eichel, Cale Makar dueling Quinn Hughes has tormented and tantalized fans for years, with the NHL choosing to sit out the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, and pulling out of the 2022 Olympics in Beijing because of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s happening. For the third time since the NHL began participating in the Olympics in 1998, the U.S. and Canada will meet for the ultimate prize. Canada won 5-2 in 2002 in Salt Lake City and 3-2 in 2010 in Vancouver, the latter in overtime on Sidney Crosby\u2019s \u201cgolden goal.\u201d Canada has won 15 of 19 meetings all time at the Olympics, including a 4-1 record with NHL participation (the lone win coming in a preliminary round game in Vancouver).<\/p>\n

The last meeting between the two countries, a 3-2 overtime victory in the final of the NHL\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off last February \u2014 set against a politically charged backdrop as President Trump openly mused about annexing Canada and making it \u201cthe 51st state\u201d \u2014 drew more than 16 million viewers in Canada and the United States.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been speculation that Trump may attend Sunday\u2019s game. FBI Director Kash Patel \u2014 a friend of USA men\u2019s hockey GM Bill Guerin and somebody who arranged for Trump to call into the United States\u2019 locker room before last year\u2019s 4 Nations final to offer words of encouragement \u2014 was supposed to be at Friday\u2019s U.S. semifinal, CBS reported. U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said after the game he didn\u2019t know if Trump was coming, and that the Americans had plenty of motivation regardless.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the group-stage format of the men\u2019s tournament, which separated the three gold-or-bust countries \u2014 Canada, the U.S. and Sweden \u2014 the two teams could only face each other in Milan in the elimination round. As the top two seeds, they seemed destined to meet in the gold medal game. Canada got there with a harrowing last-minute comeback victory over Finland in the first semifinal.<\/p>\n

The Americans set up the possibility with an equally dramatic quarterfinal win over Sweden, withstanding a last-minute goal by Mika Zibanejad before winning it in overtime on Quinn Hughes\u2019 wicked shot from the slot. They cemented it in Friday\u2019s semifinal with a thorough rout of an overmatched Slovakia squad. The tournament\u2019s pleasant surprise was unable to muster any more magic against the U.S., which got two goals from Jack Hughes and one each from Dylan Larkin, Tage Thompson, Eichel and Brady Tkachuk. Zach Werenski had three assists, and Thompson, Tkachuk and Eichel each had two points.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Connor Hellebuyck made 22 saves in Team USA\u2019s dominant win over Slovakia in the Olympic men\u2019s hockey semifinal on Friday. (Jared C. Tilton \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Connor Hellebuyck continued to rewrite the narrative<\/a> about his career, that he\u2019s only elite in the regular season and is a big-game liability. He made 22 saves, his shutout spoiled by Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd\u2019s third-period goal. The Americans have given up just eight goals in five games.<\/p>\n

Now, they\u2019re getting a Canada team that needed late-game heroics to beat both Czechia and Finland. Both teams are battle-tested in the elimination stage of the tournament, but only the Americans can say for sure they\u2019re playing at their best.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited for it,\u201d said defenseman Zach Werenski, who had three assists in the semifinal. \u201cIt\u2019s the matchup everyone wanted, and we didn\u2019t want to look ahead too far. Obviously, we knew we had to get through Sweden, get through Slovakia, and now that it\u2019s finally here, we can kind of shift our focus to Canada. We know how good of a team they are, and it\u2019s going to be a challenge for us, but I like our team right now. I like our game. I feel like we\u2019ve gotten better as the tournament\u2019s went on, and I\u2019m expecting a pretty tight game on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Guerin is one step closer to vindication for his much-disputed roster construction<\/a>. He chose to leave off three of the top four American goal scorers in the NHL \u2014 Dallas\u2019 Jason Robertson, Montreal\u2019s Cole Caufield and Detroit\u2019s Alex DeBrincat \u2014 in favor of grittier veterans J.T. Miller and Vincent Trocheck of the New York Rangers. And he left dynamic Montreal defenseman Lane Hutson at home, even passing him over when Florida\u2019s Seth Jones had to pull out of the Olympics with an injury.<\/p>\n

Offense was hard to come by against Sweden, with the U.S. scoring just once in regulation, but the Americans had plenty of firepower against lesser powers Latvia, Denmark, Germany and Slovakia.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll need all of it to hang with Canada in what will be the biggest game of many of these players\u2019 careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust can\u2019t really script it any better than that,\u201d Brady Tkachuk said. \u201cKnow for us all we cared about was putting ourselves in that position. Didn\u2019t really matter who we were going to play. \u2026 Truly grateful to be in this position to achieve a childhood dream. Hasn\u2019t really sunk in yet that we\u2019re playing. I know it\u2019s going to sink in later and tomorrow that we\u2019re playing for a gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson leaves early<\/p>\n

Thompson left the game after the second period with a lower-body injury in what coach Mike Sullivan said was for precautionary reasons. The big winger had a goal and an assist in the game, giving him three goals and an assist in five games. He\u2019s a big part of the first power-play unit, and Larkin took over that spot in the third period.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see how he recovers,\u201d Sullivan said, \u201cbut we anticipate him being ready (for Sunday).\u201d<\/p>\n

Should Thompson be unable to go, Winnipeg Jets winger Kyle Connor is the extra forward.<\/p>\n

Canada is even more banged up, with the status of captain Sidney Crosby and defenseman Josh Morrissey still up in the air.<\/p>\n

Quinn and bear it<\/p>\n

Quinn Hughes, whose absence at 4 Nations was sorely felt, moved within one point of tying Sweden\u2019s Erik Karlsson (2014) and American Brian Rafalski (2010) for the all-time record for points by a defenseman in an Olympics with NHL participation. His secondary assist on Thompson\u2019s power-play goal late in the first period gave him six assists to go with his overtime goal to beat Sweden. He has points in all five games of the tournament, with his five-game point streak tying Zach Parise (2010) for the longest by a U.S. skater in NHL-featured Olympics.<\/p>\n

Quinn\u2019s brother no slouch<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Jack.<\/p>\n

What a tournament he\u2019s having after being disappointing in last year\u2019s 4 Nations. After starting at fourth-line left wing, Hughes was promoted to third-line left wing alongside Larkin and Thompson on Friday night and added two more goals to give him three goals and eight points in five games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought he was playing real well, and so we thought by moving him up and getting him more ice time, he could impact the game more,\u201d coach Mike Sullivan said. \u201cIt was just a decision on our part based on how Jack has played, and we think he\u2019s getting better with every game he\u2019s played.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack\u2019s first goal, with the shoulder shimmy at the top of the slot, was eerily reminiscent of his brother\u2019s patented move.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s probably better at all that stuff than I am,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cHe\u2019s pretty silky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responded Jack: \u201cI don\u2019t know about that. You guys have been seeing him do that for like 25 minutes a night here. So he\u2019s the best in the world, probably, at shimmying like that up top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Battle for bronze<\/p>\n

Slovakia now turns its attention to defending its bronze medal in the Beijing Games. While the Americans cruised into the quarterfinal, Slovakia had a wild run \u2014 upsetting Finland in the opener, barely holding off Italy, then losing to Sweden but winning the group with a last-minute Dalibor Dvorsk\u00fd goal that gave Slovakia the group win and a bye into the quarters, where they knocked off Germany. Slovakia \u2014 with youth, swagger and joy on their side \u2014 believed a gold medal was within reach, but a bronze against an NHL-laden field would be a massive achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, for sure. It\u2019s a big tournament with all the NHL players, we would for sure be excited,\u201d said Slafkovsk\u00fd, who now has 11 goals in 12 career Olympic games. \u201cIt obviously sucks (when) you lose in the semifinals, always. But we\u2019re going to get a good sleep, we\u2019re going to wake up with a smile on our faces tomorrow and we\u2019re going to go do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrappy finish<\/p>\n

Matthew Tkachuk and Erik \u010cernak got into a tussle at the end of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, big emotions in this game by both sides,\u201d Slovak defenseman Martin Feh\u00e9rv\u00e1ry said. \u201cEveryone knows what the Tkachuks are doing, right? It\u2019s not something that would surprise someone. It\u2019s just the emotions got high, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stay out of the box<\/p>\n

The Americans gave Slovakia a few opportunities to get back in it by taking four penalties in the first half of the game, but the Slovak power play was ineffective. For the first few chances, Slovakia didn\u2019t even appear to have a net-front presence in front of Hellebuyck. The fourth opportunity was a little better, but the Americans still held Slovakia without a shot on goal.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Canadian power play is a tad more dangerous than Slovakia\u2019s. With a first unit of McDavid, MacKinnon, Celebrini, Cale Makar and Sam Reinhart, the U.S. can ill afford to be so undisciplined on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Jack Hughes took the Zach Werenski feed between the penalty boxes, pivoted toward the net and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,54125,4,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-465198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116105951528171915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465198","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=465198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}