Sweden looking for 'another level' to its game after loss to Olympic rival Finland

MILAN -- Team Sweden had just lost 4-1 to Team Finland on Friday at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

Dropping the latest chapter of this fierce rivalry certainly was a bitter pill to swallow for the Swedes, but this group of experienced NHL players certainly didn't sulk. Instead they talked about finding their stride before the single-elimination part of the tournament begins.

"Yeah, I think there's another level there, for sure," captain Gabriel Landeskog said after the loss at Santagiulia Arena dropped them to 1-0-1-0 in Group B. "I thought tonight we're a little bit sleepy in the first period and they were not, and then thought we got better as the game went on."

The improvement that Sweden sensed is what the players spoke mostly about after the game and something they hope carries into their final Group B preliminary game, against undefeated Slovakia (2-0-0-0) on Saturday (6:10 a.m. ET; Peacock, CNBC, ICI TOU.TV, CBC Gem, SN, RDS).

A victory would give Sweden a chance, barring possible tiebreakers, to win the group and get a bye into the quarterfinals. But Landeskog said that is not the focus right now.

"I'm not overly concerned about where we finish," Landeskog said. "I want to make sure that we play well as a team and find a way to win a hockey game tomorrow, and then we'll see where we end up."

To do so, Sweden, will need to clean some things up.

"I think at times maybe we're stretched out a little bit too much," forward Mika Zibanejad said. "We try to play five close. I think everyone tries to, but when we get stretched out like that, it's hard to get a forecheck going. It's hard to kind of get any sustained pressure. So just a little bit closer and a little more speed, especially when teams back off."

One area that hurt Sweden on Friday was special teams. The Swedes, with some of the most talented scorers in the NHL on their power play, went 1-for-6 with the man-advantage. The Swedes also gave up a short-handed goal.

The one power-play goal, from defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, made it a 2-1 game at 4:39 of the second period. Sweden got another chance on the man-advantage at 11:03 of the second, but Finland's Joel Armia scored the short-handed goal at 12:47 to make it 3-1 instead.

"We score a goal on the power play, we get another [power play], we're feeling like this is our way back," Sweden coach Sam Hallam said. "Instead, they score a goal on their PK. And now after the game, I mean, you didn't know it then, but after the game, it feels like that's pretty much where this game is decided."

The key play began when Finland's Erik Haula and Sweden's Joel Eriksson Ek chased the puck into Sweden's zone and began battling for it along the boards. Sweden forwards Zibanejad and William Nylander also joined the battle, but the puck somehow popped out right to Armia, who walked in and beat Sweden goalie Filip Gustavsson with a shot over his left shoulder.

"All three of us try to, like, jam it out, try to get it out and the puck spurts out from that battle," Zibanejad said. "And then I look up, and then their guy, just, I don't know why he was there, or how he was there, ends up on his tape and gets a breakaway.

"It's a situation that usually nothing comes out of, you try to get out of there and try to not get them to waste as much time … and it goes the other way, and fortunate bounce for them."

Though it was somewhat of a fluky play, it goes to the bigger picture of Sweden learning to play as a team before the single-elimination portion of the tournament begins.

"We talked about it beforehand. It's about chemistry," Landeskog said. "And special teams are important. And line chemistry, [defense] pairings, goaltending. We have to find it all as soon as possible.

"And that's the way it is. They ended up coming out on top tonight, and then we'll regroup and we'll get back out against Slovakia tomorrow."

The recipe is simple for Slovakia. Any kind of win Saturday and Slovakia, which has two regulation victories, takes Group B, skips the qualifying round and goes right to the quarterfinals. A Sweden win could get them the top spot in the group depending on how Finland fares against Italy, with the goal differential tiebreaker also possibly coming into play. They also could finish second in the group and get the bye; the winners of the three groups and the best second-place finisher advance directly to the quarterfinals.

It's possible goalie Filip Gustavsson, who made 20 saves, could sit in place of Jacob Markstrom, but Hallam would not say.

But for Sweden, a team with gold-medal aspirations, the only thing that matters right now is finding its game before it's sent home early.

"We've got to move on. We've got to be better," forward Alexander Wennberg said. "We're playing another game tomorrow, so we learned from this.

"Right now there's not all bad. We just aren’t happy with the result. There are a lot of good things from it as well."