Olympic Update For The 4 Habs Players

The first game of the day featured Oliver Kapanen playing against his country’s biggest rivals, where, after a disappointing performance on Wednesday vs. Slovakia, they got the best of Sweden in a 4-1 victory. However, as Finland’s 13th forward, Kapanen stayed on the bench the entire game, not getting onto the ice once. It was a disappointment not to see the youngest player on the Finnish squad get a chance to show why he can be of use to him.

With the fact that Finland won, they likely won’t make any changes for the next game, and Kapanen will likely not get any ice time for the 3rd straight game whether he’s in the press box or dressed for Sunday’s game against Italy. Maybe because it is a weaker hockey country he could get a few minutes, but don’t expect much, if anything at all, from Kapanen for the rest of the Olympics.

The next game was Slafkovsky and Slovakia taking on Italy, where, among the Habs players, he showed something on the scoresheet by recording an assist on the game’s opening goal by defenseman Libor Hudacek. Slafkovsky would finish the game with a single assist, but he would also get a ton of scoring chances in the game but couldn’t beat the Italian netminders Davide Fadani and Damian Clara. Slafkovsky recorded 7 shots on goal in the close 3-2 victory for Slovakia.

The 3rd matchup featured Alexandre Texier and France taking on Czechia, where, as expected, the French lost 6-3. France was never expected to win, but Texier has been expected to make somewhat of an impact, and through 2 games, the Habs winger has only 4 shots while being a -3 rating. They may not be a good hockey country, but he’s just not doing enough to help them with the minutes he gets.

The final game of the day featured Nick Suzuki, who was coming off a goal on Thursday in Canada’s 5-0 victory over Czechia. He started out the game playing well for Canada on his line with Nathan MacKinnon, but due to a line change that head coach Jon Cooper made that put MacKinnon with Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini to stack up the top line. It made Canada that much more dangerous, but for Suzuki, it meant he would no longer be playing with a superstar. Essentially Tom Wilson and MacKinnon swapped lines, which changed the dynamic of the line, which included Suzuki back at centre. The reality is it hurts the chemistry of the line as a whole, but it also is best for Canada, as that new top line is a powerhouse. The positive is that Suzuki looked solid on the penalty kill, but he sadly couldn’t create anything offensively after his first two shots in the first period. With that being said, he will likely continue to play in a depth defensive role alongside Brandon Hagel, but it’s clear that Tom Wilson isn’t a fit with them. Maybe putting Sam Reinhart or Brad Marchand with them could allow for more of a scoring punch.

All in all, it wasn’t a great day performance-wise for the Habs players at the Olympics, but thankfully they got good team results aside from Texier, which was expected, and most importantly, Canada beat Switzerland 5-1 to take a stranglehold on their group, with just France left to play on Sunday.