MVP of each Olympic semifinal team discussed by NHL.com writers

The Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 men’s hockey tournament is down to four teams with the semifinals on Friday.

In the first game, Team Finland will face Team Canada (10:40 a.m. ET; Peacock, USA [JIP], ICI Tele, CBC Gem, RDS2, CBC, SN [JIP]), followed by Team Slovakia vs. Team USA (3:10 p.m. ET; Peacock, NBC, ICI Tele, CBC Gem, CBC [JIP], SN [JIP], RDS2).

The winners play for gold on Sunday (8:10 a.m. ET; Peacock, NBC, ICI Tele, CBC Gem, CBC, SN [JIP], TSN [JIP], RDS2), while the losers battle for bronze on Saturday (Peacock, USA, ICI Tele, CBC Gem, CBC [JIP]).

All four teams have received big contributions from players up and down their lineups, but which player has been the MVP for each team?

That question was posed to the four NHL.com writers covering the Olympics in Milan.

Here are their responses:

Macklin Celebrini, Team Canada

Celebrini is authoring one of the best stories of the Olympics. The San Jose Sharks 19-year-old center leads the tournament with five goals, including at least one in all four games Canada has played. He is the fourth player to score a goal in four straight games at an Olympics involving NHL players, joining Marian Hossa (Slovakia, 2006), Teemu Selanne (Finland, 2006) and Mats Sundin (Sweden, 2002). He has the most points (seven) by a teenager at an Olympics involving NHL players. He is the first teenager to have multiple three-point games at an Olympics featuring NHL players and the first to do so in the knockout round with his goal and two assists in a 4-3 overtime win against Team Czechia in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Beyond all of that, the respect factor for Celebrini is significant and growing. The best example: After getting the drop pass from Celebrini, Mitch Marner said he was looking to give the puck back to him before scoring his overtime winner, but Marner said he noticed Czech defenseman Radim Simek cheating in Celebrini’s direction. It opened just enough of a hole for Marner to knife through, put the puck on his backhand and roof a shot far side from inside the left face-off circle. It’s as if Celebrini should have had two assists on the winning goal. That’s MVP stuff. -- Dan Rosen, senior writer

Quinn Hughes, Team USA

Team USA would not be in the semifinals without Hughes. The Minnesota Wild defenseman had a goal and an assist in a 2-1 win against Team Sweden in the quarterfinals Wednesday, including the overtime winner, while logging 27:31, the most among U.S. skaters by far. He has six points (one goal, five assists) in four games in the tournament, tied for the team lead with captain Auston Matthews (three goals, three assists). This is a player who won the Norris Trophy in 2023-24, when he was voted the NHL’s best defenseman. To appreciate his value, consider the Americans didn’t have him in the 4 Nations Face-Off last season due to injury. Maybe he would have made a difference in OT of the championship game, when the United States lost to Canada 3-2. -- Nicholas J. Cotsonika, columnist

Artturi Lehkonen, Team Finland

Yes, goalie Juuse Saros has played really well for the Finns here in Milan, but without Lehkonen they might be on their way home instead of getting ready for the semifinals against Canada. Lehkonen scored the winning goal in a 3-2 overtime victory against Switzerland in the quarterfinals on Wednesday and has five points (two goals, three assists) and a plus-4 rating through Finland’s four games. He’s a big-game player and a big-game goal-scorer and if Finland is going to pull off the upset of Canada, the Colorado Avalanche forward will need be that again. And I wouldn’t be shocked if he does. -- Bill Price, Editor-in-Chief

Juraj Slafkovsky, Team Slovakia

The 21-year-old isn’t just the most valuable player for the upstart Slovaks. He is the MVP of the Olympics, just like he was four years ago at Beijing. It’s not even particularly close either, and it’s not dependent on whether the Slovaks win against Team USA in the semifinal Friday or in a medal game after that. Are there other candidates? Of course there are. Qualified ones, in fact. But I’d argue that each of those candidates has more help than Slavkovsky. Without the three goals and three assists he produced in the preliminary round, I’m not sure that the Slovaks would have won their group, which also featured Team Sweden and Team Finland, which is also in the semis. He is the No. 1 target for each team when they game plan. He doesn’t care. He just produces. The Montreal Canadiens forward is the reason Slovakia is here. That can’t be said about any other candidate. -- Shawn P. Roarke, senior director of editorial