Canucks’ Lankinen and Finland Will Look For Preliminary-Round Revenge In Bronze-Medal Matchup Against Slovakia

The Vancouver Canucks’ lone representative remaining at the 2026 Winter Olympics is Kevin Lankinen, whose country of Finland will take on Slovakia for the bronze medal later today. This is not the first time these two teams have faced each other this tournament, as Slovakia notably kicked off their surprising medal run with a 4–1 win against Finland at the beginning of the preliminary round. 

Finland 

The 2026 Winter Olympics have gone in many different directions for Finland. On one hand, many were wary of the team after they suffered that 4–1 loss against Slovakia to start their tournament. On the other hand, an 11–0 rout of Italy seemed to restore the faith of many in their team. In the quarter-finals, Finland overcame a two-goal deficit to Switzerland to qualify for the semi-finals. 

Friday’s game saw Finland end up on the opposite side of the coin, getting off to a 2–0 lead but surrendering three straight to get Canada to the gold medal game. A big part of the game’s close score was Juuse Saros, who weathered the consistent onslaught of offence from Canada by making 36 saves on 39 shots faced.  

Miro Heiskanen has had a strong performance for Finland throughout the Olympics, chewing up the most minutes on his team with an average of 26:35 per game, and will need to show up once again today if his team wants to add another medal to their count. The defender has scored two goals through five games during the tournament and has also logged one assist. 

Slovakia 

Slovakia pulled off one of the biggest surprises of the Olympics in the tournament’s opening game, clawing their now bronze-medal opponent down to pad their place in the preliminary standings. Now, they’ll look to repeat that effort by taking Finland down for a bronze medal. Despite their loss to Team USA being by a pretty wide margin, Slovakia has shown up to play throughout the competition. 

Part of Slovakia’s success at the Olympics this year has been the play of Juraj Slafkovský, who is tied for the fourth-most points through the tournament with eight. His four goals in five games is tied with Nathan MacKinnon (Canada), Nick Olesen (Denmark), and Tim Stützle (Germany) for the second-most of all players. It’s no secret that Slafkovský turns things up another level at the Olympics — he previously scored seven goals in seven games at the 2022 Winter Olympics — so his effort in Slovakia’s battle for bronze will be key to his team’s success. 

Throughout the tournament, Slovakia has leaned heavily on Samuel Hlavaj as their starting goaltender. The Iowa Wild netminder has been one of the busiest in the competition, facing a second-highest 129 shots up until this point, with only Italy’s Damian Clara seeing more. Yesterday’s loss to Team USA was the lone time he’d been pulled mid-game. 

Finland and Slovakia will battle it out for bronze at 11:40 am PT today. 

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