Sabres team captain ends tournament with five points in five games for Sweden
Buffalo Sabres team captain Rasmus Dahlin and leading scorer Tage Thompson faced off in a quarter-final match at the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina on Wednesday, and Thompson’s Team USA prevailed 2-1 in overtime on a goal by Minnesota Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes. Dahlin, who was arguably the Swede’s best defenseman in the tournament, leading them in defensive scoring with five points (1 goal, 4 assists) in five games, but the questionable decision-making of Swedish head coach Samuel Hallam throughout the preliminary round came to a head in the quarter-final.
Dahlin began the preliminary round serving a lesser role to more senior blueliners like Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman, but the 26-year-old seemed to get utilized more as the tournament went along. That did not change in the Swede’s 5-1 win over Latvia on Tuesday, as the Sabres blueliner led with over 21 minutes in time-on-ice, but in a second of back-to-back games and with Hedman out with an injury that occurred in the pre-game skate, Dahlin’s pairing with Florida’s Gustav Forsling played just under 20 minutes, while the top pairing of St. Louis’s Philip Broberg (24:57) and Karlsson (27:26) were overused.
The Sabres captain was a central figure in the US’s lone regulation goal, as he failed to cover Detroit’s Dylan Larkin in front of the net, allowing the Wings captain to deflect the puck past Jacob Markstrom. Dahlin was felled late in regulation by Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk on a play that in an NHL game would have been called a tripping penalty, and he saw only one shift in overtime before Hughes’ game-winner.
It did not appear that Dahlin was injured on the Tkachuk play, but that is something that will not be confirmed until he returns to Buffalo in the next few days.
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Thompson was +1 in the game and had four shots on goal in 13:34, playing mostly with Larkin and a mix of Jack Hughes, Clayton Keller, and JT Miller on the American’s third line unit. With the victory, Team USA will take on Slovakia in the medal round, while Canada after their improbable comeback against Czechia will take on Finland.
Former Sabre Jack Eichel had another strong game for the US, with five shots on goal in 21:24. Canada’s Sam Reinhart has not had a strong tournament, and that continued in the win over Czechia, with one shot on goal in just 9:37. Germany’s JJ Peterka had a horrific outing in the 6-2 loss to Slovakia, going -4 in just over 20 minutes of ice time, as did Rasmus Ristolainen in the 3-2 overtime win over Switzerland. Ristolainen went -2 in 20:03, while Henri Jokiharju played just 6:49 in the win over the Swiss.
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