Feb 17, 2026, 05:42 PM ET<\/p>\n
MILAN — With a roster full of NHL players, Sweden was in danger of the earliest possible exit at the Olympics. Instead, it’s moving on to face the U.S. in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Adrian Kempe<\/a> and Gabriel Landeskog<\/a> scored in the first period, Jacob Markstrom<\/a> made 20 saves and Sweden beat Latvia 5-1 in the qualification round Tuesday.<\/p>\n With all the pressure on — and the possibility looming of being on the NHL player-filled first plane back to North America — the Swedes endured a nervous first 10 minutes before Kempe got them on the board. Landeskog scored 41 seconds later to relieve some of the tension.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n Filip Forsberg<\/a> scored in the second, and Mika Zibanejad<\/a> and William Nylander<\/a> added insurance goals in the third. Lucas Raymond<\/a>, who has been Sweden’s best player minus a costly penalty, had three primary assists.<\/p>\n Sweden has won three of its four games in Milan and is a formidable opponent Wednesday for the unbeaten second-seeded Americans to begin the single-elimination knockout round.<\/p>\n “They’re one of the powerhouses in the world,” U.S. winger Matthew Tkachuk<\/a> said. “They’ve been playing really well this tournament in some games.”<\/p>\n Markstrom has emerged as Sweden’s starting goaltender after Filip Gustavsson<\/a> started the tournament in that role. It’s entirely possible Markstrom plays on back-to-back nights, a rarity in the NHL.<\/p>\n Czechia holds on to beat Denmark<\/p>\n Czechia players almost seemed more relieved than anything after holding on to beat Denmark 3-2.<\/p>\n “Joy and relief,” winger Ondrej Palat<\/a> said. “A big game for us. We won. We’re happy.”<\/p>\n Czechia gets a second shot at the tournament favorite after losing to Canada 5-0 last week in each team’s opener. Committing four penalties against Denmark is not a promising recipe for the Czechs if they’d like to shock the world against top-seeded Canada.<\/p>\n “It’s a huge challenge for us,” said captain Roman Cervenka, who scored 69 seconds after David Kampf<\/a>‘s goal on what turned out to be the winner. “If we want to have a chance, we have to play much better [than against Denmark]. Everybody has to play to their max. But we try. I believe the chances always.”<\/p>\n Lukas Dostal<\/a> made 24 saves and said he’s ready to play each half of the back to back if needed.<\/p>\n Germany defeats France<\/p>\n Leon Draisaitl<\/a> and JJ Peterka<\/a> scored in a three-goal first period, and Germany beat France 5-1 to set up a quarterfinal game against Slovakia.<\/p>\n “Definitely a step in the right direction,” Draisaitl said. “It’s going to get harder. The tournament is getting smaller and it’s getting harder each and every round, so teams are going to get better. We know that. We’re aware of that. We’ve got a big task ahead of us.”<\/p>\n Josh Samanski<\/a>, a teammate of Draisaitl’s on the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> in the NHL, had a goal and an assist, and Philipp Grubauer<\/a> stopped 30 of the 31 shots he faced.<\/p>\n “The team is playing great,” said Grubauer, who also might play on consecutive days. “It makes it easy for me back there to see the puck, so they’re we’re doing the right things. System-wise, we are boxing guys out. We’re blocking shots. Great game from us. What we talked about in the locker room we translated and executed on the ice.<\/p>\n France lost all four of its games. Captain Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored his team’s only goal in the final game in his first and last Olympics at almost 41 years old.<\/p>\n “I never had the talent to be one of those top guys, but if I could be as reliable as possible, I would get a role in the NHL and that is what I have done,” Bellemare said. “It brought me a long career.”<\/p>\n Switzerland advances<\/p>\n Switzerland beat Italy 3-0, outshooting the host country 51-20.<\/p>\n New Jersey Devils<\/a> captain Nico Hischier<\/a> had a goal and two assists. Philipp Kurashev<\/a> and Roman Josi<\/a> had the other Swiss goals. Switzerland next faces Finland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb 17, 2026, 05:42 PM ET MILAN — With a roster full of NHL players, Sweden was in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-475910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}