🇺🇸 United States 2-1 Sweden 🇸🇪 (OT)
Olympic Quarterfinal
Unipol Dome, Milan 🇮🇹
Wednesday, 18 February 2026

Team USA is through to the semifinal after an 2-1 overtime win over Sweden. The Americans’ hero was Quinn Hughes who scored the game-winner at 3:27.

In the semifinal, Team USA will meet Slovakia.

“It’s so fun, so you want to just keep playing. And that’s one of our best players just taking over. That’s just Quinn making a big dog move,” the hero’s brother Jack Hughes said.

“It was basically a perfect shot. I’m not sure if it hit my stick or if I took his eyes away, but it was still a great shot, a perfect shot and that’s what it took to beat Markström today,” said Sweden’s captain Landeskog.

Dylan Larkin also scored for the Americans, and Connor Hellebuyck made 28 saves. Sweden’s Jacob Markström made 38 saves.

Sweden’s Mika Zibanejad tied the game with 91 seconds remaining with a slapshot from the left circle,sending the low-scoring, tight game in which the biggest stars were the goaltenders, to overtime. Lucas Raymond and Gabriel Landeskog picked up assists.

“I think we gave ourselves a chance to win, we’re right there all the way to the end, but, obviously it’s disappointing that we came up short. I think we deserved more but it wasn’t our day,” said Erik Karlsson.

With Victor Hedman suffering an injury during warmup, coach Sam Hallam leaned heavily on Karlsson who logged more than 27 minutes of ice time.

The quarterfinal game is the most grueling one because even a win is simply a relief. A loss spells disaster, no matter how well a team has played up until then. No wonder, then, that a quarterfinal can take some time to get going after the initial feeling-out phase.

It was the first time the U.S. and Sweden met in an Olympic playoff game. For Sweden, the Olympic quarterfinal has been an almost insurmountable obstacle in the “NHL era,” as they have won only two of five quarterfinals – in 2006 and 2014. They advanced to the final both times, winning Gold in 2006 and Silver in 2014.

In the late-night quarterfinal between Sweden and the U.S in Milan., the feeling-out phase lasted twenty minutes. However, the U.S. was the more active team and created the most dangerous chances, even though the shots were tied at eight. Sweden’s defense managed to stifle the American offensive stars.

The first half of the middle frame belonged to Sweden. Lucas Raymond had two great chances to put Sweden on the board, but Hellebuyck denied him both times – first at the five-minute mark, when Hellebuyck stretched out his left leg and got enough of his pad on Raymond’s shot, and then on the next shift, when Raymond’s wrister hit the U.S. goalie’s glove.

“Hellebuyck wants to be in the net, he wants to make a difference. He wants shots and he wants to make saves. So when you have a guy like that back there, it kind of stems confidence,” said Team USA’s Matt Boldy.

At the other end of the rink, Markström was just as impressive – but busier – than his U.S. counterpart. Team USA outshot Sweden 30–19 through two periods, and Markström made several high-quality saves.

“Markström was unbelievable for us, he kept us in the game when we need it the most. I thought we had enough chances to score more than one goal,” said Karlsson.

With 8:57 remaining, however, the Americans broke the deadlock. Jack Hughes won the offensive-zone draw and played the puck to the blue line to his brother Quinn. Dylan Larkin was in front of the net to tip in Quinn Hughes’ point shot and make it 1–0.

The game stayed alive for another five minutes after Zibanejad’s tying goal before Hughes fired a perfect shot to win it for the U.S. With that, he also kept the U.S. in the hunt for its first Olympic Gold since 1980 – the “Miracle On Ice.”

BOXSCORE
1st Period
03:21 – 🇸🇪 PEN – Forsling, slashing

2nd Period
31:03 – 🇺🇸 GOAL – Larkin (J. Hughes, Q. Hughes)
37:28 – 🇸🇪 PEN – H. Lindholm, tripping

3rd Period
42:35 – 🇺🇸 PEN – Trocheck, tripping
58:29 – 🇸🇪 EA GOAL – Zibanejad (Raymond, Landeskog)

Overtime
63:27 – 🇺🇸 GOAL – Q. Hughes (Boldy, Matthews)

GOALTENDERS
W: 🇺🇸 Hellebuyck (28-29)
L: 🇸🇪 Markström (38-40)

SHOTS ON GOAL
🇺🇸 10+20+4+6 = 40
🇸🇪 11+8+10+0 = 29

ROSTERS
🇺🇸 Goaltenders: Connor Hellebuyck, Jake Oettinger. Defence: Brock Faber, Noah Hanifin, Quinn Hughes, Charlie McAvoy (A), Jake Sanderson, Jaccob Slavin, Zach Werenski. Forwards: Matt Boldy, Jack Eichel, Jake Guentzel, Jack Hughes, Clayton Keller, Dylan Larkin, Auston Matthews (C), J.T. Miller, Brock Nelson, Tage Thompson, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk (A), Vincent Trocheck.
🇸🇪 Goaltenders: Jacob Markström, Jesper Wallstedt. Defence: Philip Broberg, Rasmus Dahlin, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Gustav Forsling, Victor Hedman (A), Erik Karlsson (A), Hampus Lindholm. Forwards: Jesper Bratt, Joel Eriksson Ek, Filip Forsberg, Pontus Holmberg, Adrian Kempe, Gabriel Landeskog (C), Elias Lindholm, William Nylander, Elias Pettersson, Rickard Rakell, Lucas Raymond, Alexander Wennberg, Mika Zibanejad.

Article Credit: Milan 2026
Photo Credit: Milan 2026 – IIHF – HHOF – IOC