Day Three was a big day for the Colorado Avalanche players in the Winter Olympics.

We saw one of the biggest battles so far with Team Sweden and Gabriel Landeskog taking on Team Finland with Artturi Lehkonen. We also saw two blowouts in the other games that the Avalanche players played in.

Team Sweden vs. Team Finland

This game is one of the biggest games of the tournament, other than Canada and USA. Team Finland was looking for redemption after losing their first game to Team Slovakia on Wednesday. Finland came out swinging with everything they had against the Swedes.

Nikolas Matinpalo’s laser shot, occurring just past seven minutes into the first period, quickly propelled the Finns to momentum. Less than 10 minutes later, Anton Lundell crashed the net after the Finns recovered a rebound to take a 2–0 lead

It was not until the second period that Team Sweden could respond with a power-play goal from Rasmus Dahlin. With eight minutes left in the middle frame, Team Seden had another chance on the power-play. The Finns capitalized with a shorthanded goal from Joel Armia. Former Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen added an empty-net goal to make the final 4–1. Neither Landeskog nor Lehkonen ended the game with any points.

Team Czechia vs. Team France

After getting blown out by the Canadians on Wednesday, Team Czechia needed to recover against Team France. Czechia started out strong with Martin Necas’ first of the tournament only six minutes into the game. Michal Kempny would follow it up seven minutes later for Team Czechia and the 2–0 lead to end the first.

Team France made its adjustments and came back with three unanswered goals from Louis Boudon and Hugo Gallet. The game appeared to be slipping away for Team Czechia. Boston Bruins star David Pastrnak would lead a comeback run of four goals by Czechia. The run involved a shorthanded goal, and Necas tacked on another assist to end the game with two points. Team Czechia ran away with the game, winning 6–3.

Team Canada vs. Team Switzerland

The dominating Canadians were looking to continue the trend despite a goaltender change for game two. Logan Thompson had the crease while Jordan Binnington had the day off.

The Canadians were on the power-play early in the first and it took only 19 seconds for them to convert the play. It was a hockey fan’s dream, with the goal coming from Connor McDavid, with assists from Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. Roughly five minutes later, defenseman Thomas Harley added to the lead. But the Swiss tried to fight back on the power-play at the end of the first. Pius Suter nailed the rebound off a shot from former Avalanche Sven Andrighetto.


Macklin Celebrini just continued to look stellar as the youngest player on the roster for the Canadians. MacKinnon dug the puck out from behind the net, and Celebrini finished with the one-timer goal in the slot.

In the third period, Canada continued its onslaught with two more goals. Sidney Crosby scored his first of the tournament with help from Makar, and MacKinnon tallied his third point of the game with a rebound goal late in the period. Unfortunately, Tom Wilson would take out Kevin Fiala from team Team Switzerland in a seemingly innocent hit late in the period. Fiala was removed from the ice on a stretcher and there has been no update on his injury as the Canadian win their second game 5–1.

Up Next

The Avalanche players will continue group play on Day Four on Saturday, as we will have three games involving Avs players. Sweden battles Slovakia at 4 a.m. MT while Finland will take on Italy at 8:30 a.m. MT. The last game of the day will be USA against Denmark at 1 p.m. MT.