There’s no better way to get back on your feet than by beating your biggest rival, which is exactly what Finland did on Day 3 of men’s hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Thursday’s non-Canadian action was defined by Finland — which lost its opener 4-1 to Slovakia — striking a blow against Sweden in the form of a 4-1 victory, while the French put a charge into Czechia before the favoured Czechs were able to right the ship and earn a 6-3 win. Meanwhile, Slovakia squeaked out a 3-2 win over Italy, as the likes of Italy and France continue to show they can — for chunks of game, anyway — hang with teams featuring high-end NHL talent.
You knew the intensity would be high when the Finns and Swedes clashed, and that was indeed the case. Los Angeles Kings sniper Adrian Kempe had a great look right out of the gate, but Juuse Saros — who couldn’t find his A-game in Finland’s opener versus Slovakia — stymied the winger to keep Sweden off the board.
The game’s first goal came from a very unlikely source when Finnish defenceman Nikolas Matinpalo wired a shot toward the goal. The puck may have been headed wide, but it glanced off the shaft of Filip Gustavsson’s goal stick and nicked off the post before hitting twine. Matinpalo did not dress for Finland’s first game and the tally marked the first goal the Ottawa Senator has scored in any hockey game this season.
The Finns went up 2-0 before the end of the opening frame, but not before the officials took a long, hard look at the play to see if Finnish centre Anton Lundell used a high stick to swat the puck home. The verdict came down in the Lions’ favour and Finland carried a two-goal advantage into the dressing room.
The Swedes pulled within one less than five minutes into the second when Rasmus Dahlin unleashed a bomb from the blueline. Working with a man advantage, Toronto Maple Leafs star William Nylander shuffled the puck down the wall all the way to the goal line before chipping a backhand pass to the point. From there, Dahlin walked into it and the Buffalo Sabres captain crushed the puck past Saros.
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Speaking of crush, Finnish captain Mikael Granlund laid a lick on Swedish centre Elias Pettersson that put the Vancouver Canucks player into the Finnish bench. Usually that results in shoves that fling the player back onto the ice, but the Finns weren’t even willing to help their rival with a “get-out-of-here” push, leaving Pettersson to wedge his way out of there on his own volition.
Sweden had a prime opportunity to pull even in the second when Kaapo Kakko was whistled for holding, but the power play backfired thanks to a back-breaking shorty by Joel Armia. The play started with hulking Finnish D-man Rasmus Ristolainen pushing up into the Swedish zone and drawing three Swedes to him along the boards as he tried to pin the puck and kill penalty time. When the puck squirted free, it eluded all the Swedes and slid to a wide-open Armia at the face-off dot. Armia — who’s carved out a long NHL career doing non-glamorous things — showed off the hands that got him drafted 16th overall back in 2011 by bringing the puck to the net and roofing it over Gustafsson’s glove.
Finland nursed its two-goal lead over the final frame and salted the game when power winger Mikko Rantanen put the puck into an empty net, leaving the Swedes to lick their wounds. Three days into the tourney, Sweden has a closer-than-expected victory over the low-ranked Italians and a loss to Finland. After two starts by Gustafsson, can we expect Jacob Markstrom to get the call when Sweden plays its final preliminary-round contest versus Slovakia on Saturday?
Speaking of the Slovaks, they sit atop Group B — which also features Sweden and Finland — with six points following their win over Italy.
After a goalless opening 20 minutes, Slovakia opened the scoring 3:51 into the second period on a man advantage. Libor Hudacek tried to slide a cross-crease pass to Tomas Tatar, only to see the puck glance off Italian defenceman Alex Trivellato and slip into the net.
Ten minutes later, the Slovaks went up 2-0 when Matus Sukel drove the net, got his own rebound and whacked it home. Italy, though, closed the gap with a power-play marker by Matthew Bradley with less than three minutes to go in the second.
Adam Ruzicka restored Slovakia’s two-goal advantage with just over eight minutes remaining in the third, but the determined Italians refused to go quietly and clawed back within one on Dustin Gazley’s strike, which came with 3:35 to go in regulation time.
However, Slovak puckstopper Stanislav Skorvanek — getting his first start of the event — held strong and Slovakia got the hay in the barn. Now, the Slovaks can clinch a bye into the quarterfinals if they can manage anything other than a 60-minute loss to Sweden on Saturday.
The most exciting contest of the day — at least for 40 minutes — came when two teams that both failed to score in their opening contest combined to net five goals in a wild second period between Czechia and France.
Czechia, of course, was blanked 5-0 by Canada on Thursday, but appeared well on its way to a get-right game in its second outing when it jumped out to a 2-0 first-period lead on France. First, it was Martin Necas — one of the top scorers in the NHL — one-timing home a power-play marker that featured assists from two more NHL studs, Boston Bruins winger David Pastrnak and Vancouver Canucks D-man Filip Hronek.
Then, Michal Kempny — a key member on the blueline for the 2018 Stanley Cup-winning Washington Capitals — shimmied backwards across the top of the French zone and walloped a drive past goalie Martin Neckar.
If the Czechs thought they were cruising, the speed bump came in the form of three French strikes in under five minutes at the start of the second. Sixty-one seconds into the frame, Louis Boudon poked a loose puck home on a power play to get the French rolling. It sure appeared the Czechs and goalie Dan Vladar may have had a case for interference on the play, but the coaching staff decided to let it be and move on without a challenge.
Just 3:03 later, Boudon was back, netting his second of the game when he was sent in alone and snapped a high shot over Vladar’s blocker. Before everybody at Milano Santagiula Ice Hockey Arena could wrap their heads around this being a tie game, the French pulled ahead 3-2 when Hugo Gallet sent home a great finish from the slot to beat Vladar.
At that point, the French had netted three goals on just seven shots.
Suddenly sweating bullets, the Czechs received a calming lift from their best player when Pastrnak got a second attempt at the puck on a wraparound and made no mistake.
Then came the play that was so galling it seemed to eliminate all possibility of a massive upset on the spot.
In the dying moments of the second, the French had a chance to reclaim the lead when Czech winger Dominik Kubalik was sent off for holding. With time on the penalty winding down, the puck drifted into the Czech zone and the French decided to go for what might be the worst-timed wholesale change in the history of hockey.
Cradling the puck near his own goal line, Hronek appeared ready to clear it the length of the ice — as one often does while killing a penalty — when he caught sight of the awful French change. He quickly switched tacks and immediately whipped a pass up to the offensive blueline that sprung three of the four Czechs on the ice on a clean 3-on-0 chance. Matej Stransky and Radek Faksa played catch with the puck before Stransky ultimately one-timed it past a helpless Neckar.
That sent the French into the room feeling horribly about themselves, and if the air didn’t completely come out of their balloon at that point, it sure did when Czechia scored twice before the third period was two minutes old to create a 6-3 score that didn’t change the rest of the way.
The French will now close out the preliminary round in search of their first point versus Canada on Sunday, while Czechia sees Switzerland the same day.
