Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky and Oliver Kapanen are on their way to the Olympic tournament's semifinals and the first two will play crucial roles in their countries' respective do-or-die game.
While most of the Montreal Canadiens have returned to training in Brossard, three of the Habs’ four Olympians are getting ready for the semifinals on Friday. Alexandre Texier is the only Canadiens player who has been eliminated so far. Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky, and Oliver Kapanen’s countries are all part of the four aces, along with Team USA.
On Friday at 10:40 AM ET, Nick Suzuki and Team Canada will be taking on Oliver Kapanen and Finland, at least on paper. The Canadiens’ rookie has been dressed for a single game by the Finnish coaching staff, but he didn’t even get to step on the ice, remaining glued to the bench the entire game.
These two teams didn’t cruise into the semifinals; Finland lost its first game of the tournament against Juraj Slafkovsky and Slovakia and was losing its quarterfinal 2-0 to Switzerland until Sebastian Aho got the comeback started with the Finns’ first goal. Miro Haskanen tied the game up with just over a minute left, and former Canadiens player Artturi Lehkonen scored the game-winning goal in overtime.
Lehkonen leads his country in points with five, tied with his former teammate with the Colorado Avalanche, Mikko Rantanen. Four Finns have four points and will also have to be closely monitored by the Canadiens: Aho, Eetu Luostarinen, Kaapo Kakko, and another former Hab, Joel Armia.
As for Canada, they came close to disaster against Czechia, who scored a go-ahead goal with less than eight minutes to go in the game through Ondrej Palat, even though the Czechs had six players on the ice at the time. Canadiens captain Suzuki came up big with the game-tying goal with less than four minutes to go in the game, and Mitch Marner booked Canada’s place in the semis with an overtime goal.
The big question for Canada is whether Captain Sidney Crosby will be in the lineup. He was hurt against the Czech and had an MRI done yesterday. The nation eagerly awaits the results, but it’s a real possibility that he won’t be able to suit up. While it would be a massive loss, the Canadians have enough debt to overcome it, but it won’t be easy. They certainly handled his loss better than their women counterpart handled Marie-Philip Poulin's injury.
Speaking to the media on Thursday morning, Sam Bennet said he was scratched from the quarterfinal due to illness, but since he was at training that morning, one can assume he’ll be ready to play tomorrow.
John Cooper will also have to decide if he wants to start the game with his offence spread around or if he wants to use his “Mach-3” line from the get-go. Putting Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon and Macklin Celebrini together at times has been key to Canada’s success so far. McDavid and Celebrini lead the tournament in points with 11 and 9, respectively, while MacKinnon, who is clearly dealing with some ailment, has six points.
If Crosby can’t play, Suzuki will no doubt be back centring Mark Stone and Mitch Marner; his performance on Wednesday impressed Cooper, who said that when the country needed a goal, Suzuki answered. He also added that the Canadiens’ centerman got better as the game went on. Canada wouldn’t be where it is now if Suzuki didn’t step up, and it will need another big performance from him to go through the Finns.
After the first semifinals, Slafkovsky and Slovakia will take on Team USA at 3:10 PM ET. The Slovaks are the only team that didn’t need overtime to reach the semis, having convincingly beaten Germany 6-2. Granted, Germany was playing a second game in as many days, but so were the Czechs and the Swiss, and they weren’t so easily beaten. The Slovaks deserve full credit for that win, especially since it was a real team effort and their top line didn’t need to carry them.
There’s no denying that the Americans will be the best team they’ve faced so far, and Slafkovsky will need to step up and have a huge game if their Cinderella story is to continue. In four games so far, the power forward has seven points while Dalibor Dvorsky has six. Those are the two players the Americans will need to counter, and they’ll be marked men.
The Slovaks will also need to remain disciplined and stay out of the box. The Americans have the second-best power play in the tournament with a 33% success rate, and they are not short of players who like to ruffle some feathers.
Quinn Hughes and Auston Matthews lead Team USA in points with six each, while Matthew Tkachuk has five. The Americans have four very balanced lines; they can all produce, but the Swedes showed yesterday that with good defence and a good goalie, they can be contained.
Going into the semifinals, Team Canada and Team USA are the favourites to go through to the gold medal game, but it certainly shouldn’t be considered a done deal. We’ve seen it on Wednesday.
Follow Karine on X @KarineHains Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social and Threads @karinehains.
Bookmark The Hockey News Canadiens' page for all the news and happenings around the Canadiens.
Join the discussion by signing up to the Canadiens' roundtable on The Hockey News.
Subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here.