Olympic hockey results: USA-Canada to collide in men's gold medal game

There was plenty of drama along the way, but when the dust settled, the Winter Olympics gave us the gold medal game in men’s hockey that many predicted. The USA and Canada will meet on Sunday to settle things in a re-match of the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off, which saw Canada win the inaugural event in the final over the USA — with plenty of bad blood coming to the surface.

The semi-final game for Team USA against Slovakia was relatively uneventful. It was clear that the U.S. had a solid game plan to overwhelm their opponents with forecheck pressure, giving way to a physical game, which Slovakia tried to match, but was unable to.

Dylan Larkin opened the scoring fewer than five minutes into the game. The Slovakia defense lost Larkin during a line change, which led to him taking a long pass from Zach Werenski which he was able to slot home on a wrister. This was followed by Tage Thompson scoring on a one-timer off the powerplay late in the first period, giving Team USA a 2-0 lead entering the second period.

Much of this game was about who could generate more quality looks. Slovakia got shots, but nothing that really threatened Connor Hellebuyck in goal. Meanwhile, there was more offensive patience from the United States than we’ve seen these Olympics, who instead methodically generated excellent chances and made the most of their talent advantage. This shone through later in the second period when Team USA scored two goals in 19 seconds with Jack Hughes showing beautiful puck handling to score, quickly followed by Jack Eichel who was lost in the shuffle in front of net off the ensuing faceoff and scored off the backhand.

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/olympic-hockey-results-usa-canada-224047038.html