Slovakia wins Group B in men’s Olympic tournament
Team Slovakia has officially pulled off a major Olympic surprise, as they clinched first place in Group B in Milano-Cortina with Team Finland‘s regulation win over Team Italy on Saturday.
By winning the group, Slovakia has clinched a berth in the tournament quarterfinals and will not have to play in the qualification round.
The Slovaks got their run started on Wednesday with a surprising upset victory over Team Finland in the tournament opener. Juraj Slafkovsky, the MVP of the 2022 Olympic tournament, powered his country to a 4-1 win over the Finns while goaltender Samuel Hlavaj turned in a remarkable 39-save performance to turn away a Finnish team that controlled most of the run of play.
Then after a day off on Thursday, Slovakia survived a scare from the host Italians by a 3-2 margin to improve to 2-0-0-0 in the tournament while Finland defeated Sweden 4-1 in a rivalry showdown, giving the Finns and Swedes each a regulation loss.
The Slovaks were unable to run the table as they fell to the Swedes earlier Saturday, but they sealed a tiebreaker over the Swedes when Dalibor Dvorsky struck for a power play goal with just 39 seconds left on the clock to turn a three-goal loss into a two-goal defeat.
That meant that as long as the Finns defeated the Italians in regulation, Slovakia would take the group and the all-important free ticket to the quarterfinals and the three days of rest that brings with it.
For a group widely expected to come down to the winner of the Finland-Sweden game, the Slovaks taking it is a surprise as a result of their strong tournament-opening performance against the Finns.
Slovakia is now one win away from a guaranteed opportunity to play for its second medal in the past two Olympic tournaments, after Slafkovsky led the group to bronze in 2022 in a tournament without NHL participation.
In the four prior tournaments this century that included NHL players, the Slovaks never earned a medal, with their best result being a fourth-place finish in Vancouver in 2010.