Hronek Pots Two Assists In Czechia's First Win, Finland Bests Sweden: Canucks At The 2026 Winter Olympics

Today’s 2026 Winter Olympic games saw longtime rivals Finland and Sweden face-off, as well as two Vancouver Canucks potting assists in their team’s victory. Of three teams with Canucks on them today, two managed to tally wins, while only three players suited up for today’s games. Here’s how day three of men’s hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics went for the Canucks.     

Elias Pettersson and Sweden didn’t let Italy’s energy and Damian Clara’s strong performance get to them in their first game, but today’s match was a different story. In a similar vein, Finland, who started Juuse Saros in their surprising defeat to Slovakia, saw their goaltender bounce-back with a 34-save performance in their 4–1 victory against their longtime rivals. 

The only Canuck to play in this game was Pettersson, who once-again found himself in an interesting role. He recorded the fourth-lowest TOI of forwards with 10:05 minutes played throughout the entire game and put up a single shot on goal. 

Since Saros started today, and Finland also plays Italy tomorrow at 7:40 am PT, Kevin Lankinen could start for his team to give their starting goaltender some rest. Regardless, it’s possible that either he or Joonas Korpisalo start tomorrow against Italy.    

After a massive loss to Canada yesterday, Filip Hronek, David Kämpf, and Czechia notched their first win of the tournament with a 6–3 win against France today. Despite the three-goal differential and 38–12 shot count favouring Czechia, this game was a little closer than some may think. France actually held the lead for part of the second period after scoring three goals unanswered, though ultimately, Czechia was able to fire up the engine and seal the win. 

Czechia was unable to find any offence on Thursday, but on Friday, they managed to put six goals up on France. Exactly half of their goal total at the end of this game had Canucks factoring into them, as Hronek tallied assists on both Martin Nečas’ power play goal and Matěj Stránský’s 4–3 tally. Hronek also put two shots on goal and registered a team-high 19:59 minutes played. 

As well as Hronek’s multi-point game, Kämpf also managed to register a point in today’s game. The centre assisted on Filip Chlapík’s 5–3 goal at the start of the third period. Despite not looking terrible against Canada the day before (which is hard to do when up against Canada’s firepower), Kämpf ended up having his ice time reduced to 13:21 in today’s game. 

Group A

Canada: 2–0–0–0 

Czechia: 1–0–0–1

Switzerland: 1–0–0–1

France: 0–0–0–2

Group B

Slovakia: 2–0–0–0 

Finland: 1–0–0–1

Sweden: 1–0–0–1

Italy: 0–0–0–2

Group C 

USA: 1–0–0–0

Germany: 1–0–0–0

Denmark: 0–0–0–1

Latvia: 0–0–0–1

Sweden vs. Slovakia: 3:10 am PT 

Germany vs. Latvia: 3:10 am PT 

Finland vs. Italy: 7:40 am PT 

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