MILAN — Dalibor Dvorsky’s goal with 39 seconds sent Slovakia to the quarterfinals in men’s hockey at the Olympics as the winner of the group in a tiebreaker even after losing to Sweden 5-3 on Saturday in each team’s final preliminary round game.
Slovakia won Group B when Finland crushed host Italy 11-0 later in the day because of goal differential among the three tied teams. The bench celebrated when Dvorsky scored, and players were all smiles afterward.
“It’s probably the best loss I ever had,” said Slovakia’s Juraj Slafkovsky, the reigning Olympic MVP who’s tied with Canada’s Connor McDavid for the most points in the tournament with six apiece. “It’s crazy, but we take it.”
Dvorsky, who plays for the St. Louis Blues in the NHL, also called it the best loss of his life. His goal on the power play after a penalty on Lucas Raymond made it happen.
“We all know what we need to do on the ice,” Dvorsky said. “There was not too much tactics, right? And at this point of the game, just try to get pucks to the net. And at the end, it was a rebound that was the goal.”
Sweden, which played much better than it had in its 4-1 loss to archrival Finland on Friday, was left to lament a missed opportunity even after winning the game. Coach Sam Hallam pulled goaltender Jacob Markstrom in the final seconds while leading by two goals because of the tiebreaker, but Sweden did not score again.
“Tough pill to swallow,” alternate captain Victor Hedman said. “But we will regroup. We’ll be ready for our next challenge.’’
Markstrom stopped 29 of the 32 shots he faced and may have supplanted Filip Gustavsson as Sweden’s starter moving forward. Sweden is locked into the seventh seed and will have to play in the qualification round Tuesday just to make it into the quarterfinals Wednesday.
“It is what it is,” Hallam said. “Just look ahead, everything that’s really good never comes easy.”
Finland 11, Italy 0
Sebastian Aho, Kaapo Kakko, Joel Kiviranta and captain Mikael Granlund each scored twice for Finland in a beatdown of host Italy. The 11-goal margin made it the most lopsided men’s hockey game at the Olympics since 1988, when Sweden beat France 13-2.
Because of goal differential, the Finns were incentivized to run up the score on an overmatched opponent. At one point, Finland had eight goals and Italy had eight shots.
“I’d expect nothing less,” Italy captain Thomas Larkin said. “That’s the game we’re playing here. Yeah, that stings for us obviously from a pride perspective but also in the standings.”
Finland coach Antti Pennanen and his staff told players about the tiebreaker before puck drop.
“They knew that, and then we told them honestly what is the situation,” Pennanen said. “We had a plan. First plan: win the game. And then do goals as much as you can.”
Barring something incredibly unforeseen in games, Finland is into the quarterfinals as the No. 4 seed.
Latvia 4, Germany 3
Eduards Tralmaks and Renars Krastenbergs scored just over three minutes apart, and Latvia defeated Germany. Arturs Silovs of the Pittsburgh Penguins stopped 26 of the 29 shots he faced.
“We’re a good team,” said Zemgus Girgensons of the Buffalo Sabres, one of 10 NHL players on Latvia’s roster. “We believed it. I don’t think we go into the game thinking it’s going to be any other way. We came in today thinking we’re going to win. And that’s what we did. We on paper, probably the best team we’ve had. We’re just going to keep gaining better by every game.”
Germany’s Philipp Grubauer, who was excellent in an opening win against Denmark when he and his teammates were badly outshot, allowed four goals on 22 shots in the loss.
“We just got to find a way to score,” said Tim Stützle, who scored the third goal for Germany. “That’s it. We got to go in the hard areas, know where the other guy is and then make those plays.”
Germany faces the U.S. on Sunday night.
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