Which Olympic team has surprised the most in the preliminary round?
Only two teams went undefeated through the preliminary round of the men’s hockey tournament at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, and it should be no shock who those teams are. Canada and the United States, the two overwhelming favorites coming into the tournament, cruised through group play, winning all of their games by comfortable multi-goal margins.
While Canada and the United States are the only teams with zeroes in the loss column, they haven’t been the only ones to impress. Slovakia, for instance, won Group B despite being underdogs to the scandinavian powers of Sweden and Finland. Non-traditional hockey countries, such as Denmark and even the host-country Italy, proved to be more competitive than some may have expected.
On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed which teams have surprised the most so far.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The team that has surprised you the most through the preliminary round is who?
Carter Hutton: Slovakia. Slovakia is the team for me that I don’t think I really had them on my radar to do what they’ve been able to do. They have a few big names, and some guys that can play. But this has been an inspired group over there and they’ve been able to get it from all areas. Goaltending’s been good, Juraj Slafkovsky has been unbelievable. I think this is an exciting time for a country like this. They’ve made noise before in international tournaments, but this was a team I didn’t see coming, Ty.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I think they’ve been great. Obviously Juraj Slafkovsky, that tremendous opening game gave them that big win over Finland, and the trickle down effect as it went through the rest of the preliminary round. If Slafkovsky doesn’t have that opening game performance, we probably aren’t talking about a Sweden-U.S.A. quarterfinal. That’s the kind of wrench they threw into the plans in Milan.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Friday’s episode here…