Granlund shines as Finland crushes Italy 11-0. Meanwhile, USA scratches LaCombe as the Olympic hockey tournament intensifies with preliminary round play winding down.
The 2026 Olympic men’s hockey tournament is nearing the end of the preliminary rounds. Group B kicked off the tournament on the 11th and was the first to wrap up their round-robin games.
Two members of the Anaheim Ducks organization went head-to-head on Saturday, as Mikael Granlund’s Finland were looking to earn the top seed with a big win against Ducks prospect goaltender Damian Clara’s Italy.
Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe served as a healthy scratch for the United States’ first tournament game against Latvia and would do so again for Saturday’s game against Denmark.
Mikael Granlund (Finland vs. Italy)
Finland: 11, Italy: 0
Finland’s listed third-line center, Anton Lundell, was forced to miss this game due to an illness, which caused Finland to alter their forward lines. Eeli Tolvanan slotted into captain Mikael Granlund’s spot on the top line next to Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen. Granlund filled in for Lundell on the third line between Eetu Luostarinen and Kaapo Kakko.
Finland dominated this game from the opening puck drop. They generated non-stop, relentless offensive zone possession time, and with their active defenseman and reliable F3s, they were able to keep pucks in the zone and keep cycles alive. Italy simply was unable to advance pucks beyond their defensive blueline.
With Luostarinen’s defensive prowess and without his linemates’ demand for the puck on the top line, Granlund was freer to transport pucks through the middle third of the ice and drive cycles deep in the Italy zone. He continued to make little plays to create space for his linemates and find them streaking with speed, utilizing his elite vision. As the game wore on, he began to toy with Italy’s defense, breaking down on-puck defenders with creative dangles and attempting spin-o-rama seam passes from circle to circle.
He operated lower, toward the bottom of the left circle on the power play, which allowed him to see the entire offensive zone when he had the puck and feed the net front, bumper, and Rantanen on the far side alike.
Granlund finished with two goals on seven shots in 17:15 TOI.
Damian Clara (Italy vs. Finland)
Italy: 0, Finland: 11
Much like in Italy’s opening game against Sweden, Clara was given a tall order for this game against medal hopeful Finland. He was forced from the game against Sweden early in the third due to an injury, but avoided anything serious, as he was able to return to the crease three days later for Saturday’s game.
Clara only lasted 40 minutes in this one, as he was pulled after the second period when Finland got out to a 6-0 lead. He let in six goals, but due to Finland’s never-ending pressure and Italy’s lack of NHL-caliber defensive structure, one would be hard-pressed to lay blame on him for any of those tallies.
The only nitpick would have come on Finland’s third goal, Kakko’s first, where Kakko’s momentum was carrying him away from the net while at the right dot and beat Clara on the far side. However, that came off a defensive breakdown that led to Kakko having ample time and space to get his release off from a dangerous location. The other five goals allowed by Clara developed from a 2v1 out of the corner, an own-goal while penalty killing, a screened and tipped point shot, a dot-to-dot seam pass, and a 3v2 backdoor tic-tac-toe play.
Clara was visibly calmer to start this game than he was on Wednesday, confident on his angles when facing shots from distance, and less noisy when Finland drove pucks to his crease. Finland ran a lot of plays out from the goal line to the faceoff dots, and Clara was excellent on those pushes to cut down any potential net for shooters to aim for. When Finland attempted to carry pucks out from behind the net, his reverse VH rendered him massive, and he covered the entirety of the net when shots were taken in tight and at the bottom of the circles.
Clara stopped 32 of the 38 shots he faced through the first two periods in this game before he was pulled in favor of Davide Fadani.