Canada likely takes top spot pending USA result after routing France to wrap up preliminary games at Winter Olympics
Before heading to the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, St. Louis Blues center Pius Suter said not to overlook Switzerland.
Suter and the Swiss have been true to form through three preliminary games in the men's ice hockey portion after finishing second in Group A with an exciting 4-3 overtime win over Czechia at Milano Santagiulia IHO Arena in Milan, Italy on Sunday.
Dean Kukan (formerly of the Columbus Blue Jackets) scored 1:49 into overtime to give the Swiss the win and a 1-1-1-0 mark, which puts them in a good position (either fifth or sixth pending all results from Sunday) heading into the qualification playoff games on Tuesday.
Suter scored his second goal in three games when he put Switzerland ahead 3-2 at 8:07 of the third period, or 1:34 after Czechia (1-0-1-1) tied the game 2-2.
It was an emotional game for the Swiss, who lost Kevin Fiala (Los Angeles Kings) in a 5-1 loss to Canada, for the remainder of the tournament and for the rest of the NHL season when he had surgery for his lower-body injury.
But nevertheless, Switzerland will move along and perhaps use the inspiration of losing a teammate to injury when they play next on Tuesday.
* Canada 10, France 2 -- The Canadians breezed through their three preliminary games will go into the single elimination portion not having to play until Wednesday as the top seed (likely) in the quarterfinals (pending USA's result with Germany in the final game Sunday).
Canada finished 3-0-0-0 with a goal differential of plus-17, meaning the United States, which went into their final game at plus-7, would have had to win their game against Germany by 10 to gain the top seed and score more goals than Canada as the second tiebreaker (Canada scored 20, USA went into final game with 11). Otherwise, USA will enter quarterfinal play Wednesday as the second seed.
It was a light -- and likely boring -- game for Jordan Binnington, who got the start Sunday after a 26-save shutout against Czechia on Thursday, and faced only 14 shots against the French (0-0-0-3) but allowed his first two goals of the tournament.
Defenseman Colton Parayko was paired with Dallas Stars defenseman Thomas Harley for this one, had no points and was a minus-1 in 15:08 of ice time.
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