Sports
The United States and Canada will face off for gold on Sunday at 8:10 a.m. ET.
Team USA forward Jack Hughes (left) scored twice to help his team advance to the gold-medal game against Canada. Hassan Ammar
MILAN — The last 12 months have featured some fantastic hockey games between the United States and Canada.
How about another?
The two teams who couldn’t wait to fight each other in the 4 Nations Face-Off last February will go at it again at the 2026 Winter Olympics, this time for gold. Both teams reached Sunday’s gold medal game (8:10 a.m. ET) with semifinal wins at Santagiulia Arena on Friday.
The US pounded Slovakia, 6-2, stopping cold the Cinderella Slovaks’ run of beating premier hockey nations. Canada, missing captain Sidney Crosby — no word yet on his availability for Sunday — advanced with a comeback win over Finland, which included some controversial non-calls that had the Finns hot.
All that, 24 hours after the US and Canada women produced one of the most thrilling – and the single most-watched – game in Olympic women’s hockey history.
Sunday’s atmosphere, which should be bonkers anyway, would be even more so if President Trump makes an appearance. Italian media reported this week that authorities are preparing for a possible Trump visit, for the gold medal game at Santagiulia Arena and closing ceremony at Verona Arena, about 90 miles to the east.
There has been no confirmation from the Trump administration of any such plans.
What was re-confirmed Friday: the Americans can score in bunches.
Jack Hughes struck for two goals, and Dylan Larkin, Tage Thompson, Jack Eichel, and Brady Tkacuk added the others. Netminder Connor Hellebuyck made 22 saves, beaten only when the game was out of hand.
Slovakian goalie Samuel Hlavaj, who had a huge hand in his country earning the No. 3 seed out of the preliminary round and a bye to the quarterfinals, was lifted after Eichel made it 4-0 midway through the second.
Larkin got it started at 4:19 in the first. The Americans doubled the lead with 41 seconds left in the period when triple-digit shooter Thompson squeezed a rocket between Hlavaj’s shoulder and the post. Thompson, however, blocked a shot with his foot, and sat out the third period for what USA Hockey said was precautionary reasons.
The Americans were up, 2-0, and seemed to be irritated it wasn’t 5-0. They weren’t giving up scoring chances, but they weren’t converting them.
Hlavaj kept making saves, booting out a pair of booming power-play bids from Auston Matthews. Jake Guentzel kicked in a centering feed. They weren’t going to beat him that way, either.
The dam broke. Jack Hughes walked in, jumped around a Tomas Tatar check and whipped a wrister blocker-side. After Eichel scored at 12:33 off a Slovak turnover, Hlavaj looked like he knew it was over.
Down on his belly after the save, he laid there for a 10-count. Teammate Stanislav Skorvanek skated in.
Hlavaj punched the glass before taking his seat in the backup’s chair. An assistant coach came over — perhaps to tell him they’d need him for Saturday, perhaps to settle him down, perhaps both.
Hughes scored his second of the game early in the third, beating Skorvanek with a sharp-angle snapshot, and Brady Tkachuk deked his way to a 6-2 lead.
The Slovaks made a run to the bronze medal game against Finland with seven active NHL players, the fifth-fewest of the 12 teams here. Most of their roster plays in the Czech league.
They had 18 NHLers in 2006, when captain Zdeno Chara carried the flag in Turin in front of names like Marian Hossa, Marian Gaborik, and Miroslav Satan. They had 10 in Sochi, when Chara was 39, the rest of that group was graying, and goalie Jaroslav Halak painfully said, “We have no young players coming up.”
No matter the result in Saturday’s bronze medal game, Slovakian hockey is back on the map. They won bronze, their first medal of any color, without any NHLers in 2022, when 17-year-old future No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky scored seven goals in seven games and was named MVP. They took down Finland in the preliminaries, and Germany in the quarterfinals, behind Slafkovsky (now 21), Dalibor Dvorsky (20) and Simon Nemec (22).
Slafkovsky scored with 15:05 left, spoiling Hellebuyck’s shutout bid on the 15th shot of the game. It was the Montreal Canadiens winger’s fourth goal in five games in Milan. Things got loose late in the third, with Pavol Regenda scoring on a break-in.
The pot boiled over with 1:43 left, when Slovak defenseman Erik Cernak was ejected for throwing gloves-off punches at Matthew Tkachuk, a continuation of the Lightning-Panthers rivalry. Matthew and Brady Tkachuk were sent off, all three players earning misconducts.
“We have a great spirit,” said 35-year-old Slovak captain Tomas Tatar, the former NHLer now playing in Switzerland, before the game. “I’m very proud. Everybody’s playing well and so far it’s been a hell of a tournament.”
And now, a hell of a finish.
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