Finland showed its muscle in a 5-1 victory over Switzerland to advance to the men’s Olympic hockey semifinals.
The Finns will meet with Slovakia in the semifinal, marking a rematch of the team’s 6-2 win over the Slovaks early in the tournament. Finland has won a medal in six of the past nine Olympics, but has never won gold. They last won bronze at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
Two goals two minutes apart by the Finns really set the tone for the rest of the game. Miro Aaltonen scored at 8:37 after getting in front of Reto Berra, who would react to a shot from Niklas Friman and fall down. Aaltonen knocked in the second chance past the former NHL goalie to make it 1-0.
Shortly after, Mikko Lehtonen’s shot hit off Santeri Alatalo’s arm before bouncing off Berra’s head and in for the 2-0 goal – an unlucky situation for a Swiss team that showed some muscle early.
Unfortunately for Switzerland, things went from bad to worse early in the second. Marko Anttila made it 3:08 after scoring on Berra glove side, chasing him from the net in favor of Leonardo Genoni in hopes of shaking things up to end the game.
And for a little bit, it worked. Andres Ambuhl scored at 17:49 on the power play to make it 3-1 in what could potentially be his final Olympic goal after five tournaments. Switzerland pulled Genoni with five minutes left to try and spark a comeback effort, but Iiro Pakarinen and Teemu Hartikainen both scored empty-netters to seal the deal.
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