Slovakia vs. Sweden prediction: Mens Olympic Hockey odds, preview, best bet
It’s been a lethargic start to the Olympics for Sweden’s men’s hockey club.As a recap: The Swedes let the Italians, who began the tournament with 100/1 gold medal odds, not only strike first, but settled for a 5-2 victory after spending 60 minutes of fruitless target practice.Finland then hit them with a tempo jump as they fell to their rivaling nation, 4-1, on Friday. Now comes the last chance to steady the ship for Sweden, which began the tournament with the third-shortest odds at +650. Slovakia delivered the first major upset of the Games with a 4-1 victory over Finland.
With only seven NHL players rostered, the Slovaks came to Milan as middling underdogs and haven’t shared the same breath as the Americans, Canadians, and Swedes in any dialogue amongst pundits.One thing they do have going for them is Juraj Slafkovsky leading the tournament with four points as of this writing.The 2022 first-overall selection to the Montreal Canadiens buried a pair of goals against the Finns and has turned heads with his bulldozing strength and blistering shot.Slafkovsky played in the 2022 Beijing Olympics four months before he was drafted.
He led Slovakia to its first-ever bronze medal, earning tournament MVP honors with seven goals, and that experience over his contemporaries is paying dividends. But there’s not much depth to this Slovakian roster to support Slafkovsky’s heroics.Maybe we still aren’t giving enough credit to the Italians, or maybe their opponents just aren’t stepping on their throats as early as they should.
Either way, Slovakia loses stock after it took all 60 minutes to secure a 3-2 victory over the tournament’s most underqualified roster. The Swedes have multiple Slafkovskys, though; it’s just that none of them are producing.Between Elias Pettersson, Lucas Raymond, Mika Zibanejad, William Nylander, and Jesper Bratt, you wouldn’t know these are franchise players in the world’s most premier hockey league based on these Games; the...