The 2026 Winter Olympic Men’s Hockey event kicked off with a bang.
In a game that included plenty of the rough stuff, Team Slovakia claimed the first win of the Men’s Hockey event at the 2026 Olympics in Milan on Wednesday afternoon with a 4-1 score over Team Finland. The victory is Slovakia’s first victory over Finland since becoming their own country in 1993.
Opening the scoring, Canadiens star forward Juraj Slafkovsky carried the puck wide on Finland goaltender Jusse Saros and eased the puck into the open far side just under eight minutes into the first period.
Queue the rough stuff. Finland started asserting their presence late in sequences including a brutal reverse hit on Slafkovsky next to the Finland bench late in the first.
Following a bit more rough stuff, the Slovaks started the second period on the power play.
Killing the man advantage and doing their best to find their way into the middle, Finland’s Eeli Tolvanen scored a backdoor power play goal 4:15 into the second period. Tieing the score did nothing to ease the tension between the two teams. The next few minutes included a number of net-front scrums.
Despite surrendering a power play marker, Slovakia kept their foot on the gas, generating the majority of the rush chances with most sequences concluding with a crowd in front of Finland’s crease.
“It helped me that it wasn’t that it was so difficult in the second period.” Slovak starter Samuel Hlavaj told reporter Tomas Prokop of DennikSport following the game. “There’s a lot of heat in the hall, so I’d welcome less work back then. When we were locked up in our defensive zone, it was more difficult.”
Editor’s note: The translation doesn’t quite transition to English perfectly.
A little over ten minutes into the second, Calgary Flames forward Martin Pospisil, who missed most of this season due to concussion issues, found himself in a hard collision with Finnish defenceman Mikko Lehtonen. Both stayed on their feet, but the hit was hard. It wouldn’t be the last hit Pospisil would be involved in.
The Finns pressed the attack in the late-second period including a few extended shifts in Slovakia’s defensive zone. A five-man collapse to the net and some artistry in net by Hlavac kept the score tied at 1-1.
Less than two minutes into the third period, Finland defenceman Rasmus Ristolainen put Pospisil in a headlock behind the Finnish net after a play. No penalty.
With the game tied and tensions high in the final period, 20-year-old St. Louis Blues rookie Dalibor Dvorsky recovered the puck on a net-front scramble and snapped it past Saros to give Slovakia a 2-1 lead.
Minutes later and on the power play, Slafkovsky snapped the puck from the high slot to put the Slovaks up 3-1.
With under six minutes to go, Ristolainen delivered a devastating forearm shiver to the chin of Martin Pospisil that forced his head to rebound off the glass. No penalty was assessed on the play. Pospisil stayed in the game after needing a moment to pick himself up off the ice.
With 2:21 remaining, a stickless scramble from Slafkovsky led to an empty net marker scored by former Flames Adam Ruzicka to seal the game at 4-1.
Three Takeaways
Sleeping Giant
The star power of Miro Heiskanen, Mikko Rantanen, Sebasian Aho, and Jusse Saros wasn’t present for the Finns. The three NHL difference-makers recorded zero points three three periods and Saros allowed three goals on 32 shots.
Notorious slow starters, perhaps we’re just seeing Finland following the script before firing up in the medal rounds. Their next game is sure to be a wake-up call. They play archrival Sweden at 6:10 a.m. EST on Friday.
On the other hand, Finland sent Slovakia to the Bronze medal game last Olympics. Slovakia had yet to beat Finland at the Olympics prior to today. It’s possible that the Slovaks were bearing a grudge.
Giant Backend
Slovakia stuck to the plan and kept Finland almost entirely to the perimeter of their defensive zone. The two massive pairings of Gernát (6’4”) with Černák (6’4”) and Mariničin (6’4”) with Čerešňák (6’3”) absolutely clogged any chance of an inside shot off the rush. When push came to shove, Finland’s more veteran group of forwards found themselves boxed out.
“We played to our structure, and that’s how we won the game,” Slovak forward Oliver Okuliar told IIHF reporter Andrew Podnieks. “The whole country cheers for us, and even more when we win a big game like this. They have an NHL roster and we don’t, but we compete, and we competed really well today. It says something about our team and our culture, how we are together. We are proud of this win.”
On the Shoulders
There is simply no win without the herculean offensive performance of Juraj Slafkovsky, who recorded two goals and an assist in the game. The MVP of the 2022 Men’s Hockey event in Beijing (with seven goals in seven games) picked up right where he left off and now has nine goals and one assist in eight Olympic games.
Slovakia’s next game kicks off at the same time as Finland vs. Sweden: 6:10 a.m. EST on Friday.
Keep Reading:
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