MILAN — The face of Team Canada hobbled down the tunnel midway through the toughest test his group has faced in this suddenly intriguing Olympic tournament.
Favouring his right leg after a crunching hit from Czechia’s Radko Gudas, Sidney Crosby was taken out midway through a 4-3 nail-biting quarterfinal overtime victory for the Canadians Wednesday at Milano Santaguilia Arena.
While the heavily favoured Canada opened the scoring less than four minutes in, thanks to a nifty Connor McDavid setup to teenage phenom Macklin Celebrini, Team Czechia stormed back with two goals to take a first-period lead.
Lukas Sedlak got Czechia on the board, then star David Pastrnak struck on the power-play.
For the first time since 2010 in Vancouver, Canada trailed in best-on-best Olympic action.
Memories of Nagano 1998 danced in the ether. The last time these two countries met in a best-on-best Olympic elimination game, the Czechs eked out a 2-1 shootout win in the semifinals. Canada did not use Wayne Gretzky in a shootout.
“This might be the best team ever,” Pastrnak had warned Tuesday night. “Let’s put the respect aside a little bit and try to take their game to them. Offensively, their power is incredible.
“Just have to be a little stronger on pucks, play more in the O-zone and be more confident. You know, we have nothing to lose. So, we’re gonna go out there and leave it all out there. As a team, we haven’t played our best yet, so hopefully we will save it for tomorrow.”
Indeed, they did.
The Czechs submitted their best effort of these Winter Games so far, and Canada needed a dominant second period — outshooting the underdogs 17-5 in the frame — and a power-play conversion of their own (Celebrini to McDavid to Nathan MacKinnon) just to tie the game.
Czechia’s Ondrej Palat sniped off the rush to restore Czechia’s lead in the third.
But Canada’s Nick Suzuki countered with just 3:27 remaining in a hard-fought third period on a slot tip of a Devon Toews point shot.
Canada’s Mitch Marner scored the winner.
Sweet relief.
Adversity has finally hit the Canadians — and hard. Crosby’s status for Friday’s game is so far unknown.
As the tournament’s top seed, Canada will face the lowest remaining seed in the semifinal.
If Sweden (7) defeats the U.S. (2) Wednesday night, Canada will face Sweden.
If not, Canada will get the winner of Finland–Switzerland.
Fox’s Fast Five
• Celebrini continues to wow. He became the first teenager to score in an elimination game in a best-on-best tournament, then got promoted to the top power-play unit in Crosby’s absence.
He helped set up the tying goal, picking up his eighth point and surpassing Evgeni Malkin (Russia, 2006) for most points by a teenager in an NHL-participation Olympics.
• Czech starter Lukas Dostal didn’t blink about the opportunity to take the crease less than 24 hours after defeating Denmark Tuesday.
“Playing in Europe before, we always played back-to-back. It was always Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Sunday. So, I have no problem with playing back-to-backs,” the goalie stated.
What about at the NHL level, though?
“Actually, this season, I got pulled against Dallas in the middle of the game (an 8-3 loss on Dec. 20),” the Anaheim Ducks star said. “I walked to the tunnel and Q (Ducks coach Joel Quenneville) told me, ‘Hey, be ready for tomorrow.’ So, we played back-to-back, and then we won the game (4-3 versus Columbus). So, yeah, I’ve done it before.”
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The men’s hockey tournament at Milano Cortina 2026 runs from Feb. 11-22. Follow along with all the scores and standings.
• Nathan MacKinnon’s original line remains an issue. He looks fantastic on those bump-up shifts with McDavid, but coach Jon Cooper hasn’t found the best wingers for him yet.
• Canada’s power play fell to second in the tournament. They’ve gone 5-for-12 (41.6 per cent), while the U.S. (3-for-7) is operating at 42.8 per cent.
• Juraj Slafkovsky has led his tiny country back to the Olympic semifinal. He compared the accomplishment to the bronze medal Slovakia won in Beijing, sans NHLers.
“It’s probably 100 times better,” Slafkovsky said. “You’ve got the best players over here, and we managed to come here and go to the semifinals. It’s big for me, big for our country, big for every supporter we have.”
Added Erik Cernak: “Amazing. Before the tournament, if we would say we’re gonna make semifinals, probably people would laugh at you. But we did it, and it’s not done yet.”
