{"id":187095,"date":"2026-02-21T04:19:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T04:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187095\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T04:19:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T04:19:19","slug":"u-s-men-rout-slovakia-will-play-canada-for-hockey-gold-medal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/187095\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. men rout Slovakia, will play Canada for hockey gold medal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MILAN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. and Canada faced off in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s hockey finals in the same Olympics twice before the Milan-Cortina Games<\/a>. Both times Canada took home all the gold.<\/p>\n

Now the Americans have a chance at a sweep of their own after the men\u2019s team routed Slovakia 6-2<\/a> on Friday to advance to the gold-medal game Sunday, when they will face \u2014 you guessed it \u2014- Canada. The U.S. women have already done their part, beating Canada in overtime in their final Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wore our colors proudly. Couldn\u2019t be more proud of them,\u201d Winnepeg Jets\u2019 goaltender Connor Hellebuyck said of the women\u2019s team. \u201cNow it\u2019s our turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully,\u201d forward Jake Guentzel added, \u201cwe can follow what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two U.S. teams followed different paths to their finals. The women laid waste to the competition, outscoring their opponents 31-1 in the first five games. The men also averaged a tick over five goals a game in the preliminary round plus looked a little rusty doing it.<\/p>\n

With players on its roster from 17 NHL teams, chemistry was a work in progress for the U.S. men in the early going. That work is done now, said Minnesota Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes, who had one assist Friday and leads the team with six.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re obviously better than we were the first game,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more you play together, the more you\u2019re going to be able to read off each other and understand the system we want to play and where [guys] like pucks and whatnot.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we play 20 games, we\u2019d be better in game 20 than we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the Americans were pretty good Friday, running out to 5-0 lead behind a pair of second-period goals from Jack Hughes and three assists from Zach Werenski. The other scores came from Dylan Larkin and Tage Thompson in the first period and another from Jack Eichel in the second.<\/p>\n

Brady Tkachuk\u2019s third-period breakaway goal closed out the U.S. scoring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have everything,\u201d Hellebuyck said. \u201cWe have chemistry, we have awesome [defensemen], we have awesome scorers, playmakers, penalty kill, power play. We have it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"U.S. <\/p>\n

U.S. forward Brady Tkachuk slips the puck past Slovakia goalie Stanislav Skorvanek in the third period.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gautheir \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

They also have motivation. Not only has Canada beaten the U.S. in an Olympic final twice this century, it also beat the Americans in the final of last year\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we played them in a best of seven, it probably goes seven. So it\u2019s just going to be whoever\u2019s better on that day,\u201d Quinn Hughes said. \u201cYou want to go through the best. And right now that\u2019s them after winning 4 Nations.<\/p>\n

\u201c[But] I think we\u2019ve got a great opportunity to try to win gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every player on the 25-man U.S. roster plays in the NHL. Same with Canada. And Guentzel said the fact so many Canadians and Americans are teammates and opponents in the NHL adds to the rivalry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe play each other all year on different teams,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re close to each other. It\u2019s going to be electric out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top pros were held out of the last two Winter Olympics, in 2018 over a dispute between the players and the IOC, and in 2022 because of COVID-19 interruptions in scheduling.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving NHL players back in the Olympics, it\u2019s huge,\u201d Hellebuyck said. \u201cSo many people tune in and see how how exciting the sport can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"American <\/p>\n

American Dylan Larkin, right, celebrates after scoring in the first period against Slovakia on Friday.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

While that might level the playing field a bit for the U.S., history is still on Canada\u2019s side. Not only did it win 4 Nations, but it has won six of seven Olympic finals with the U.S., losing only in 1960. And the U.S. has never won an Olympic tournament played outside the U.S., with its two gold medals coming in Lake Placid in 1980 \u2014 do you believe in miracles? \u2014and Squaw Valley 20 years earlier.<\/p>\n

The experience factor also favors Canada, which won the last two tournaments featuring NHL players. Kings defenseman Drew Doughty was on both those teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means the world to me. The absolute world.\u201d he said of the Olympic final.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gold or nothing for us. All the previous ones were tough roads. It\u2019s the Olympics. The pressure\u2019s there. But once you touch the ice, you\u2019ve just got to focus on doing your job. And that\u2019s all it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. women got that job done. Now it\u2019s the men\u2019s turn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. and Canada faced off in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s hockey finals in the same Olympics twice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[83959,12672,15722,2194,20224,48,52,51,88039,47,50,49,77115,85314,9018,63987,67386,427,12967,88037,88038],"class_list":{"0":"post-187095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-brady-tkachuk","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-front","11":"tag-goal","12":"tag-jack-eichel","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-left-circle","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","19":"tag-los-angeles-news","20":"tag-many-game","21":"tag-puck","22":"tag-second","23":"tag-slovakia","24":"tag-tage-thompson","25":"tag-team","26":"tag-tournament","27":"tag-u-s-man","28":"tag-zack-werenski"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}