Canucks And Former Canucks Continue Their Quests For Gold: 2026 Winter Olympic Semi-Final Preview

Today marks the start of the semi-final round of the 2026 Winter Olympics, with Canada and Finland taking part in the early game and USA and Slovakia facing off in the late game. Kevin Lankinen is the sole member of the Vancouver Canucks still in the competition, as his fellow teammates were all eliminated during the quarter-finals or before. Along with Lankinen, three former Canucks in Bo Horvat, Quinn Hughes, and J.T. Miller will take part in the semi-finals. 

The biggest story for Canada heading into the semi-finals is the status of captain Sidney Crosby. Always a massive presence on Team Canada, Crosby sustained an injury during his team’s quarter-final matchup against Czechia and missed the remainder of the game. Despite losing Crosby last game, Canada managed to find a way to come back from multiple deficits. 

Finland’s quarter-final matchup went a similar way — overcoming a deficit to ultimately win the game in overtime. However, in Finland’s case, the team ended up coming back from being down 2–0 within the final 10 minutes of the third period. It’s been an interesting tournament for a Finnish team that struggled early, but has managed to find its groove at timely occasions to keep themselves alive. 

For Canada, showing up ready to play and testing Juuse Saros early will be big. The Finnish goaltender has been the busiest of those with the four remaining teams, having faced a total of 97 shots and making saves on 91 of them. Part of what contributed to Switzerland taking an early lead is the fact that both of their goals came almost a minute within one-another. Getting on the board early and building on a lead will be key to establishing a win against a Finland team that has notably found their legs best at the later stages of their games.  

Canada got its first taste of adversity on Wednesday and still managed to push through it, which may seem disheartening from Finland’s perspective. But for Finland, who has overcome their own fair share of deficits, the best way to tackle this is to keep up a continuous effort throughout the game. While it ultimately didn’t get the job done, Czechia’s physical, hard style of play against Canada neutralized a good chunk of their offence — to the point where they kept the tournament-leading power play down to one goal on three attempts. If Finland can manage to prevent a high-volume of quality chances from reaching Saros, they may be able to keep their gold-medal hopes alive. 

From a Canucks perspective, it’s very unlikely that Lankinen plays in today’s game, as Saros has started in all four of Finland’s games. Lankinen backed Saros up in Finland’s first game of the tournament, but has since been healthy-scratched in favour of Joonas Korpisalo. On Canada, Horvat will likely continue to center a line in his team's bottom-six, though that may depend on whether Crosby is available for today's game or not. 

Canada and Finland will face each other at 7:40 am PT today. 

Slovakia continues to be a surprising team throughout this tournament, having kicked things off with a surprising win against Finland in the preliminary round and most-recently punching their ticket to the semi-finals with a 6–2 win against Germany on Wednesday. A good chunk of this success for Slovakia has come from the offensive dominance of noted Olympic performer Juraj Slafkovský, who is now up to three goals and four assists in his team’s four games played. The Montréal Canadiens forward finished his team’s quarter-final matchup with one assist and a team-high five shots on goal. 

Despite heading to overtime in their 2–1 quarter-final win against Sweden, Team USA did not look hesitant at all. The group, headlined by former Canucks captain Quinn Hughes, dominated Sweden from an offensive standpoint through most of the game, throwing 40 shots on Jacob Markström including six during the three-and-a-half minutes of overtime. Where things fell in the U.S.’s favour is in net, where Connor Hellebuyck did what he needed to in order to help his team win. 

Team USA is a clear favourite to win this particular matchup, but with that being said, Slovakia can’t be counted out just yet. They’ve played with heart and have surprised many with their efforts throughout the tournament. Where they’ll look to clean things up on the ice are with their special teams. Slovakia is the second-most penalized team through the tournament when it comes to two-minute minors (19), though their penalty-kill currently ranks fourth with a success rate of 82.35%. On the flip side, USA has had the second-least power plays through the tournament with nine but have managed to score on three of them. Staying out of the box will help Slovakia make a big push for a semi-final win. 

For the U.S., who have played a relatively consistent game throughout the tournament, something to keep an eye out for will be a late collapse slightly like what happened against Sweden. The lone stretch in which they didn’t look all-that strong is when Sweden pressed to get the game-tying goal, during which things could have easily gone south. It’ll be important for Team USA to establish a lead, grow it throughout the game, and prevent themselves from getting caught-up in a potential late-comeback yet again. 

From former Canucks, expect Hughes to log yet another high-minute game, as the defenceman is currently averaging an undisputed team-high of 23:31 minutes per game (the second-highest after him is Charlie McAvoy with 19:19). Miller will likely proceed with a lower-minute role that has seen him move all around the lineup, resulting in an average of 12:43 minutes per game. 

USA and Slovakia will face each other at 12:10 pm PT today. 

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