Olympic Hockey: Auston Matthews, USA crush Slovakia 6-2 in semi-final, will face Canada in gold medal game
Slovakia have been one of the better stories of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics from a men’s hockey standpoint. After a long rut where they weren’t overly competitive on the international stage, the surge they’ve gotten in recent years from young players like Juraj Slafkovsky, Simon Nemec, and Dalibor Dvorsky has helped them gain notoriety on an international level once again. They claimed a silver medal at the 2022 olympics (albeit one without NHLers), but they have proven that wasn’t a fluke with their performance in 2026, facing off against the United States in the semi-finals.
Unfortunately for them, the USA showed up and took names in their matchup, sending the Slovaks to the bronze medal game to be played on Saturday and advancing themselves to the gold medal game on Sunday morning. It wasn’t an overly competitive matchup, with the States taking the win 6-2.
Detroit Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin opened the scoring for Team USA a little under five minutes into the game with helpers coming from Zach Werenski and Tage Thompson. They added a power play goal near the end of the first period, with Tage Thompson finding the back of the net off assists from Jack Eichel and Quinn Hughes.
The States continued to pour it on in the second period, with Jack Hughes making it 3-0 a little over halfway into the period. When Eichel made it 4-0 only 19 seconds later, it prompted Slovakia to pull goaltender Samuel Hlavaj and replace him with Stanislav Skorvanek. The States added one more before the period ended, with Jack Hughes finding the back of the net for the second time. Matthew Boldy picked up the assist on the fifth goal.
Matthews and the Americans will face rival Canada in a classic gold medal showdown on Sunday morning, while Slovakia and Finland will compete for the bronze medal on Saturday.