Finland fights for bronze against Slovakia. Can they rebound from semifinal heartbreak and secure a medal?
After a tough, last-minute 3-2 loss to Team Canada on Friday, Sebastian Aho and Team Finland will get the chance to end their Olympic run on a positive note as they go for bronze.
The Finns will take on Team Slovakia Saturday afternoon at 2:40 p.m. EST after both fell in their semifinals matches.
Aho is leading Finland in goals with three and his five points are second on the team behind linemate Mikko Rantanen.
The Carolina Hurricanes star centerman is the leading forward in terms of TOI, averaging 19:25 per game.
He's been an all-situations player for Suomi, even though last game he curiously saw a decrease in minutes and PK time.
But if Finland wants to avenge their Olympic opening loss to Slovakia and medal, they'll need Aho to have a big game.
Slovakia has been dangerous this year, with Juraj Slafkovsky (4g, 8pts) and Dalibor Dvorsky (3g, 6pts) being some of the tournaments highest scoring players.
Add in Samuel Hlavaj being one of the top goaltenders (0.915 Sv%) and you can see why they've made it as far as they have.
But Finland is a much deeper team, with a goaltender playing even better than Hlavaj in Juuse Saros (0.934 Sv%), so if they just stick to their game, they should have pretty good chances of coming home with some hardware.
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