MILAN — The quarterfinal scenarios for the men’s hockey tournament are set as the qualification round has four games on the slate at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Canada, USA, Slovakia and Finland await the winners of the Feb. 17 matches.
Germany knocked off France, and will play Slovakia. Switzerland defeated host Italy, and will face Finland.
Czechia beat Denmark and moves on to play Canada, the tournament’s top seed after the preliminary round.
The Americans will face Sweden, which defeated Latvia.
Sweden is a hockey power, but has not played well at the tournament, and there are questions about the goaltending of Filip Gustavsson and Jacob Markstrom, who have played in two games each.
Sweden advances to meet USA. The Swedes started slow, needing about half the first period to get moving. Then came goals from Adrian Kempe and Gabriel Landeskog to make it 2-0 after 20 minutes. Filip Forsberg followed up to make it 3-0 near the midpoint of the second period, part of a 6-1 edge in shots to start that period.
The Latvians continued to pressure, at times pinning the Swedes in their zone, and were rewarded when Eduards Tralmarks scored on Jacob Markstrom.
Lucas Raymond earned his second assist of the night when he set up Mika Zabinejad to make it 4-1 in the third period, and a third assist when William Nylander added another dagger in Latvia’s hopes with a goal with 6:42 to go.
Czechia advanced to face Canada in the quarterfinals in a tightly played game. It was 0-0 after the first period. Danish goaltender Frederik Andersen had a busy second period as the Czechs directed 18 shots on net. Martin Necas, David Kampf and Roman Cervenka’s shots went in, but the Danes scored twice on Lukas Dostal, on goals from Alexander True and Nick Olesen, to make it a one-goal game going into the third period.
The Danes pulled Andersen with a couple minutes to play for an extra attacker but couldn’t get the tying goal.
“We’re disappointed that we didn’t get the win,” Denmark captain Jesper Jensen Aabo said. “We didn’t make the quarterfinals, which was our big goal. Yeah, we played some really good hockey, I would say, against top nations in the world, but we didn’t really get the result we wanted.”
The Germans ran out a three-goal lead in the first period, and while they did not look dominant against massive hockey underdog France, they advanced to meet Slovakia in the quarterfinals. Leon Draisaitl began the scoring 3:40 into the game, with Frederik Tiffels and JJ Peterka adding goals in the first period. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, a 40-year-old with 700 NHL games on his resume, put France on the board early in the second period. The French replaced Julian Junca with Antoine Keller to start the second period. Joshua Samanski put Germany back up by three goals before the period ended.
“I think first period was great,” Tim Stützle said. “Then we kind of just managed to lead. Maybe a couple too many turnovers, but [Philipp Grubauer] was great in net again and helped us out. Everybody sacrificed, so it was a big win for us.”
The French pulled their goalie with about two minutes to play for an extra attacker. Nico Sturn took advantage to add an empty-net goal with 56 seconds to play.
The French were angry that teammate Pierre Crinon, who fought Tom Wilson in a preliminary round game, was suspended for the rest of the tournament by the French Ice Hockey Federation.
“I think he deserves to play,” Hugo Gallet said. “Honestly, it’s a little bit frustrating for our own federation to suspend him. I think maybe they make that decision based on something that happened in the past in another league. Honestly, I’m behind him. We needed him. He is a big part of our team, and they took a really good player from us for tonight.”
Antoine Keller said, “I think we are a big family. When we come together, we come as brothers, and we just got rid of one of our brothers, so it’s a joke from the French Committee Olympic. We need this player. We needed him today, and they just take it from us for something that just like happens every week in any hockey game, so I think that’s a joke.”
Switzerland moves on to play Finland in the quarterfinals. The Swiss led on goals from Philipp Kurashev and Roman Josi after two periods against the host country. Nico Hischier scored around six minutes into the second period.
Peacock is streaming every game live.
The 12 teams are divided into three groups. They are:
Teams play one game each against the other three teams in their group. Countries get three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime win, one for an overtime/shootout loss and zero for a regulation loss.
After the preliminary round is complete, teams are seeded 1 through 12 under the following criteria:
The top four teams (group winners and best second-place team) get a bye to the quarterfinals. Teams 5-12 play in a qualifying round, with the winners going to the quarterfinals.
Playoff qualification games are on Feb. 17, quarterfinals are Feb. 18 and semifinals are Feb. 20.
The bronze medal game is Feb. 21 and the gold medal game is Sunday, Feb. 22.
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