Every team has a player who epitomizes the team’s identity. A player who comes to mind when you think of the team.

For Finland, that player is Juuse Saros, the goaltender.

Team Canada coach Jon Cooper put it best when he described Saros at the post-game press conference after the semifinal.

“In a game where the [190-centimeter] goalie is becoming an average size, he has found a way to be a superstar. The way he tracks pucks, the way he moves, I don't know if there's a goalie in the league who does it better than he does,” he said.

Saros is doing something nobody thinks should be possible. He’s punching way above his weight by simply refusing to listen to the naysayers.

And that, in short, is what Finland has been, and still is, for the hockey world. Finland is like the player who’s won so many most underrated player awards that it’s difficult to consider them underrated anymore. In the last decade alone, Finland has shocked, surprised, and stunned big hockey nations so many times that a Finnish win shouldn’t be considered a surprise anymore.

Or, as Anton Lundell put it after the semifinal loss to Canada: “I think we proved, once again, that we’re world-class players and can play with anyone.”

It also means that while the Finns – back in the day, say, in the early 2000s – were happy with a bronze, the 2026 edition is deeply disappointed after their loss to Canada. And maybe they’ll become one of those teams that subscribes to the “gold or bust” mentality and has a hard time getting up for a bronze medal game.

With players like Saros, Finland will most likely battle hard for the medal, though. Their tournament got off to a rocky start when they lost to Slovakia, the feel-good story of the Olympics, but they turned things around, beat Sweden, and scored enough goals into Italy’s net to earn a bye to the quarterfinal, in which they rallied back from 0–2 to beat Switzerland 3–2 in overtime.

Mikko Rantanen leads the team in tournament scoring with six points, followed by Sebastian Aho, Joel Armia, and Artturi Lehkonen, all with five points. They have the firepower, they have a solid defense, and they’ve shown resilience – as Finns always do.

Is that enough to beat Slovakia’s next-generation team? The tournament’s youngest team was riding a high all the way to the semifinal against Team USA, where they got a rude awakening in a 6-2 loss. 

However, Slovakia is in Milan to defend their bronze medal from Beijing in 2022.

“You know, we know the difference between the Beijing and Milan tournaments, that the top NHLers are here, but we're living our dream, and I couldn’t be prouder of our players. They’ve worked hard since the first day in the training camp, working for each other,” head coach Vladimir Orszagh says.

“It's not about one or two guys, but about the 22 guys on the ice, plus the guys in the dressing room. We need to stick to the brotherhood, play for each other, and play for our country,” he adds.

Slovakia knows that they can beat Finland; they just did it ten days ago, 4–1. There’s also no question about whether they will be motivated to win bronze medals for their country, where almost half the population was cheering them on in the preliminary-round games, and certainly more than that in the playoff stage.

And if Finland is Saros, then Slovakia is Juraj Slafkovsky, a skilled, fearless, even brash young star who’s in the top five in tournament scoring but whose best years are still ahead of him. The fact that Slafkovsky seems to thrive on playing with his national team is a bonus.

Slovakia’s stars Slafkovsky, center Dalibor Dvorsky – second in team scoring – defenseman Simon Nemec, and goaltender Samuel Hlavaj are all under 25. They have a bright future in front of them, and maybe the road to a future gold is paved with bronze from Milan.

Slovakia v Finland
Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena
20:40 (local time)