There was only one game on the Olympic schedule today, and it was the first medal game in the men’s hockey event. While gold is always the colour every country strives for, sometimes in these team events, Bronze can feel just as good as gold, and even better than silver because you go out on a win.

The bronze medal match-up between Slovakia and Finland was bound to be a good game. The two teams opened the tournament against one another, where Slovakia beat up on Finland with a 4-1 victory.

A couple of lineup notes before this game began: Flames forward Martin Pospisil was scratched from today’s game. There has been no official word as to the reason, but it seems as though Pospisil may be dealing with an illness. With Pospisil out, that means that — assuming (and hoping) Sidney Crosby dresses for the gold medal game tomorrow — the Flames will be the only NHL team without a player dressed for a medal game at these Olympics.

On the Finnish side, Mikko Rantanen was also ruled out for this game, leaving Finland in need of filling a large hole in its lineup.

Finland controlled the majority of the opening period. It put a lot of pressure on Slovakia early, resulting in the opening goal of the game. Slovak goaltender Samuel Hlavaj thought he had saved and covered the puck, but it lay loose beneath him. Artturi Lehkonen was able to poke the loose puck into the open, where Sebastian Aho put it into the net to make it 1-0.

From that point, the remainder of the period opened up a little bit. Both teams exchanged quality scoring chances, but the goaltenders held strong heading into the intermission.

In the second period, Finland regained some of its momentum. Erik Haula — coming off that short-handed goal against Canada — skated the puck into the offensive zone. Without even glancing toward the net, he wired a shot from the top of the faceoff circle that beat Hlavaj cleanly to make it 2-0.

Yesterday, when Finland led 2-0, they took their foot off the gas and switched to playing a defensive game. Ultimately, that cost them — and you knew they weren’t going to hold back this time.

But perhaps it was the beginning of a little déjà vu for Finland, as Slovakia would get back within one before the period ended. With 30 seconds to play in the period, Tomas Tatar found himself all alone in front of Juuse Saros. He made a nifty move before backhanding the puck into the net to bring some life back to the Slovakian bench.

The opening moments of the third were tense. Finland did not want to give up a two-goal lead two days in a row. Then came an opportunity to regain a multi-goal lead as Slovakia took a penalty. On the power play, Roope Hintz — who had been snakebitten all tournament — finally got his first goal as he tipped one in to make it 3-1. Then, 42 seconds later, Kaapo Kakko sniped a shot home to add an insurance marker and essentially put the game out of reach.

Slovakia had nothing to lose as time was running out and pulled the goaltender with over five minutes remaining to try to generate anything. It was Finland, however, that took advantage, scoring two empty-net goals to make it 6-1 and win the bronze medal.

Finland follows up its 2022 Olympic gold with a bronze in the return of NHL players. This is the eighth medal all time for Finland (one gold, two silver and five bronze). It played the entire tournament without its top player in Aleksander Barkov and played the bronze medal game without its second-best player in Mikko Rantanen.

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