Ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics – Men's tournament

2018 Winter Olympics

Tournament details
Host country	South Korea
Venue(s)	2 (in 1 host city)
Dates	14–25 February
Teams	12
Final positions
Champions	Olympic Athletes from Russia (1st title)
Runner-up	Germany
Third place	Canada
Fourth place	Czech Republic
Tournament statistics
Games played	30
Goals scored	154 (5.13 per game)
Attendance	138,327 (4,611 per game)
Scoring leader(s)	Nikita Gusev (12 points)
MVP	Ilya Kovalchuk

The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics was held in Gangneung, South Korea between 14 and 25 February 2018. Twelve countries qualified for the tournament; eight of them did so automatically by virtue of their ranking by the International Ice Hockey Federation, one, South Korea, automatically qualified as hosts, while the three others took part in a qualification tournament.

After five consecutive Olympic tournaments in which the National Hockey League (the world's premier professional league) allowed its players to participate in the Olympics and adjusted its schedule to accommodate the tournament, the NHL announced in 2017 that it would prohibit any player under NHL contract, including those not actually playing for an NHL team, from participating in the Olympics. The NHL secured the cooperation of the International Ice Hockey Federation and the IOC ensuring that nations would not be allowed to ask NHL players to participate.

Unlike the NHL, a vast majority of European leagues accommodated an Olympic break, headlined by Russia-based KHL's 33-day break, Sweden-based Swedish Hockey League's 14-day break, Switzerland-based National League's 25-day break, German-based Eishockey Liga's 26-day break, Czech Republic-based Extraliga's 18-day break and Slovakia-based Tipsport liga's 14-day break. Conversely, Finland-based SM-liiga accommodated a 10-day-break. However, Liiga allowed its top players to leave their clubs and participate in the Olympics.

The Russian national team, competing under the name of the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR), won the gold medal, defeating the German national team with a score of 4-3 in overtime in the final.

Qualification

Main article: Ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics – Men's qualification

Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland, United States, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Slovakia qualified as the top eight teams in the IIHF World Ranking in 2015.

South Korea qualified as host team. To field a competitive team, the South Korean government agreed to grant one American and six Canadian hockey players that were playing in Korean leagues dual citizenship to make them eligible for the national team. The remaining three teams qualified from qualification tournaments.

Qualified teams

Event	Date	Location	Vacancies	Qualified
Hosts	19 September 2014	Tenerife	1	South Korea
2015 IIHF World Ranking	2 April 2012 – 17 May 2015	Prague and Ostrava	8	Sweden Finland Canada Russia United States Czech Republic Switzerland Slovakia
Final qualification tournament	1–4 September 2016	Minsk	1	Slovenia
Final qualification tournament	1–4 September 2016	Riga	1	Germany
Final qualification tournament	1–4 September 2016	Oslo	1	Norway
Total			12

Notes

Rosters

Main article: Ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics – Men's team rosters

Match officials

14 referees and 14 linesmen were selected for the tournament.

Referees

• Oliver Gouin
• Brett Iverson
• Jan Hribik
• Antonín Jeřábek
• Aleksi Rantala
• Anssi Salonen
• Roman Gofman
• Konstantin Olenin
• Daniel Stricker
• Tobias Wehrli
• Jozef Kubuš
• Linus Öhlund
• Mark Lemelin
• Timothy Mayer

Linesmen

• Nathan Vanoosten
• Vít Lederer
• Miroslav Lhotský
• Hannu Sormunen
• Sakari Suominen
• Lukas Kohlmüller
• Gleb Lazarev
• Alexander Otmakhov
• Nicolas Fluri
• Roman Kaderli
• Jimmy Dahmen
• Henrik Pihlblad
• Fraser McIntyre
• Judson Ritter

Preliminary round

All times are local (UTC+9).

Tiebreak criteria

In each group, teams will be ranked according to the following criteria:

1. Number of points (three points for a regulation-time win, two points for an overtime or shootout win, one point for an overtime or shootout defeat, no points for a regulation-time defeat);
2. In case two teams are tied on points, the result of their head-to-head match will determine the ranking;
3. In case three or four teams are tied on points, the following criteria will apply (if, after applying a criterion, only two teams remain tied, the result of their head-to-head match will determine their ranking):
   1. Points obtained in head-to-head matches between the teams concerned;
   2. Goal differential in head-to-head matches between the teams concerned;
   3. Number of goals scored in head-to-head matches between the teams concerned;
   4. If three teams remain tied, result of head-to-head matches between each of the teams concerned and the remaining team in the group (points, goal difference, goals scored);
   5. Place in 2017 IIHF World Ranking.

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Ranking after preliminary round

Following the completion of the preliminary round, all teams will be ranked 1D through 12D. To determine this ranking, the following criteria will be used in the order presented:

1. higher position in the group
2. higher number of points
3. better goal difference
4. higher number of goals scored for
5. better 2017 IIHF World Ranking.

Team advanced to Quarterfinals

Team play in Qualification playoffs

Rank	Team	Group	Pos	GP	Pts	GD	GF	IIHF Rank
1D	Sweden	C	1	3	9	+7	8	3
2D	Czech Republic	A	1	3	8	+5	9	6
3D	Olympic Athletes from Russia	B	1	3	6	+9	14	2
4D	Canada	A	2	3	7	+7	11	1
5D	Finland	C	2	3	6	+5	11	4
6D	Slovenia	B	2	3	4	−4	8	15
7D	United States	B	3	3	4	−4	4	5
8D	Switzerland	A	3	3	3	+1	10	7
9D	Germany	C	3	3	2	−3	4	8
10D	Slovakia	B	4	3	4	−1	6	11
11D	Norway	C	4	3	1	−9	2	9
12D	South Korea	A	4	3	0	−13	1	21

Playoff round

Bracket

Playoffs

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Gold medal game

21 February

Czech Republic (GWS)

3

20 February

United States

2

United States

5

23 February

Slovakia

1

Czech Republic

0

Olympic Athletes from Russia

3

21 February

Olympic Athletes from Russia

6

20 February

Norway

1

Slovenia

1

25 February

Norway (OT)

2

Olympic Athletes from Russia (OT)

4

Germany

3

21 February

Canada

1

20 February

Finland

0

Finland

5

23 February

South Korea

2

Canada

3

Germany

4

Bronze medal game

21 February

24 February

Sweden

3

Czech Republic

4

20 February

Germany (OT)

4

Canada

6

Switzerland

1

Germany (OT)

2

Qualification playoffs

The four highest-ranked teams (1D–4D) received byes and were deemed the home team in the quarterfinals as they were seeded to advance, with the remaining eight teams (5D–12D) playing qualification playoff games as follows. The losers of the qualification playoff games received a final ranking of 9 through 12 based on their preliminary round ranking.

Quarterfinals

Following the quarterfinal games, the winning teams were re-ranked F1 through F4, with the winner of 1D vs. E4 re-ranked as F1, the winner of 2D vs. E3 re-ranked as F2, the winner of 3D vs. E2 re-ranked as F3, and the winner of 4D vs. E1 re-ranked as F4. The losers of the quarterfinal round games received a final ranking of 5 through 8 based on their preliminary round ranking.

Final ranking

Pos	Grp	Team	Pld	W	OTW	OTL	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Final result
1	B	Olympic Athletes from Russia	6	4	1	0	1	27	9	+18	14	Champions
2	C	Germany	7	1	3	1	2	17	18	−1	10	Runners-up
3	A	Canada	6	4	0	1	1	21	12	+9	13	Third place
4	A	Czech Republic	6	2	2	0	2	16	15	+1	10	Fourth place
5	C	Sweden	4	3	0	1	0	11	5	+6	10	Eliminated in Quarter-finals
6	C	Finland	5	3	0	0	2	16	9	+7	9
7	B	United States	5	2	0	2	1	11	12	−1	8
8	C	Norway	5	0	1	1	3	5	18	−13	3
9	B	Slovenia	4	0	2	1	1	9	14	−5	5	Eliminated in Qualification playoffs
10	A	Switzerland	4	1	0	1	2	11	11	0	4
11	B	Slovakia	4	1	0	1	2	7	12	−5	4
12	A	South Korea (H)	4	0	0	0	4	3	19	−16	0

Source: IIHF.com
(H) Host

Statistics

Scoring leaders

List shows the top ten skaters sorted by points, then goals.

Player	GP	G	A	Pts	+/−	PIM	POS
Nikita Gusev	6	4	8	12	+7	4	F
Kirill Kaprizov	6	5	4	9	+7	2	F
Eeli Tolvanen	5	3	6	9	+1	4	F
Ilya Kovalchuk	6	5	2	7	+5	4	F
Patrick Hager	7	3	4	7	–3	4	F
Maxim Noreau	6	2	5	7	+3	0	D
Derek Roy	6	2	5	7	–2	8	F
Linus Omark	4	0	7	7	+6	0	F
Ryan Donato	5	5	1	6	–1	2	F
Jan Muršak	4	3	3	6	–1	0	F

GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/− = Plus/Minus; PIM = Penalties in Minutes; POS = Position
Source: IIHF.com

Leading goaltenders

Only the top five goaltenders, based on save percentage, who have played at least 40% of their team's minutes, are included in this list.

Player	TOI	GA	GAA	SA	Sv%	SO
Jonas Hiller	211:19	4	1.14	91	95.60	1
Vasily Koshechkin	348:08	8	1.38	126	93.65	2
Mikko Koskinen	296:38	8	1.62	117	93.16	0
Gašper Krošelj	188:44	6	1.91	87	93.10	0
Ben Scrivens	149:17	4	1.61	56	92.86	0

TOI = Time on Ice (minutes:seconds); SA = Shots Against; GA = Goals Against; GAA = Goals Against Average; Sv% = Save Percentage; SO = Shutouts
Source: IIHF.com

Awards

• Media All-Stars
  • Goaltender: Vasily Koshechkin
  • Defencemen: Maxim Noreau, Vyacheslav Voynov
  • Forwards: Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Eeli Tolvanen
• Most Valuable Player: Ilya Kovalchuk
• Best players selected by the directorate:
  • Best Goaltender: Danny aus den Birken
  • Best Defenceman: Vyacheslav Voynov
  • Best Forward: Nikita Gusev

Source: IIHF.com

External links

• Official IIHF website