OAR and Germany battled to a nearly scoreless first period in the gold medal game until Vyacheslav Voynov put OAR on the board with just one second remaining in the frame. The Canadians battled back in the third, but Germany was able to hang on and win by a score of 4-3. It was the Germans who jumped ahead early and held a 4-1 advantage after two periods. The second semi-final pitted Canada against the surprising team from Germany. The Russian national team, playing under the name of the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) took on the Czech Republic in the first semi-final game and came away with an impressive 3-0 victory to secure their spot in the gold medal contest. The event was held in PyeongChang, South Korea, with 12 countries vying for gold. Rankįor the first time since 1994, the Olympic men’s hockey competition would take place without the participation of NHL players. The media all-star team featured Slovakian goaltender Patrik Rybar, the defenders were Mikko Lehtonen of Finland and Yegar Yakovlev of ROC, and forwards Sakari Mannien of Finland, Lucas Wallmark of Sweden, and Juraj Slafkovsky of Slovakia, who was also named MVP. The Finns had previously won three Bronze Medals since 1998: Nagano in 1998, Vancouver in 2010 and Sochi in 2014. It proved to be the winning goal, and Finland celebrated winning the country’s first-ever Gold Medal in Men’s Olympic Hockey. It was a close match, but tied at one apiece going into the third period, Finland’s Marko Anttila fired a shot at the ROC goal that Hannes Bjorninen redirected past the goaltender. That left ROC and Finland to play for the Olympic Gold the next day. In the Bronze Medal contest, played on February 19, 2022, Slovakia shut out Sweden 4-0 to earn their first Olympic medal in hockey since 1998 when NHL players were first permitted to compete in the international tournament. The medal games were played on consecutive days at the Beijing National Indoor Stadium. Sweden, another front-runner if they had competed with a roster that included NHLers, was stopped in the semi-final by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team that edged them out 2-1 in a marathon shootout. In the quarter-finals the United States was eliminated by Slovakia in a shoot-out, while Sweden shut out Canada 2-0. Twelve countries participated in the tournament, and after battling through the qualifying rounds, the quarter-finals and semi-finals, some sizable surprises emerged. The countries favoured to win because of the number of NHL stars on their roster were no longer shoo-ins. The decision substantially altered the complexion of the Winter Olympic hockey tournament. Prior to the 2021-22 season, the National Hockey League confirmed that NHL players could compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics, but as the year wound down, the NHL announced that its players would not be released as rising COVID-19 cases caused many games to be rescheduled.
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