Slovakia's surprising group win could cause chaos in men's Olympic hockey tournament

Slovakia did not win its Group B game against Sweden on Saturday, dropping a 5-3 decision. But because of a late goal scored by Dalibor Dvorsky to cut the deficit to two goals, they still had a big reason to celebrate.

And they did.

Perhaps more than any team has ever celebrated a loss in the Olympics. 

That goal gave them a tiebreaker (by goal differential) in a three-way tie with Sweden and Finland at the top of the group, sending them through to the quarterfinal as the surprising winner of the group. It is not only a surprising result in group play, but it could also lead to some chaos in the knockout round this week.

Slovakia's Group B win could knock gold-medal contender out early

There was a time, not that long ago, that Slovakia was a hockey power with a collection of stars who always formed quality teams in international competition. 

But over the past 10-20 years, there has been a steady decline in terms of both the quality and quantity of players coming out of the country. The emergence of Juraj Slafkovsky (Montreal Canadiens) in recent years has been huge for the hockey program, and he has been outstanding so far in this year's tournament (just as he was in the 2022 Olympics that he was able to play in before being drafted into the NHL). Even with his presence, nobody really considered them a top contender (or even a sleeper team) to win Group B. 

Sweden and Finland were the the two biggest favorites to win the group, with the former being a legitimate gold-medal contender and the latter being a serious medal contender.

Now that Slovakia has won the group, and with Finland in a good position to earn the fourth and final bye into the quarterfinal round, that means Sweden is going to have to play in the knockout round on Tuesday and set up a potentially massive game in the quarterfinal. 

Assuming Sweden gets through its playoff-round game (and it should), it would then be looking at the very real possibility of a quarterfinal matchup against either the United States or Canada.

That would be a nightmare quarterfinal matchup for everybody involved because it is the type of matchup that would have been viewed as either a potential semifinal or perhaps even championship game. All three of those teams are perfectly capable of beating the other. 

It would also mean the loser of that hypothetical game would be leaving Italy with no chance of winning a medal. That would simply be a stunning development. 

USA, Canada and Sweden entered the tournament as the top-three gold-medal favorites and the favorites to win their respective groups. Slovakia and Sweden threw a pretty big wrench into all those plans. Now one of those hockey powers is facing the real possibility of not even getting the chance to play for a medal.