Canada eliminates Czechia in OT, will face Finland in Olympic semifinal

Mitch Marner took a drop pass in the neutral zone and glided up ice.

The smooth-skating forward could see the opposition cheating towards Macklin Celebrini on the right side, with his country facing a disastrous exit from the Milan Cortina Olympics.

Marner made a quick decision to go it alone — and then sent Canada into the semifinals of the men’s tournament.

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The Thornhill, Ont., product scored a dramatic winner at 1:22 of 3-on-3 overtime Wednesday, as the hockey power battled back from a late 3-2 deficit and survived the loss of captain Sidney Crosby to pick up a spine-tingling 4-3 victory over Czechia.

“It’s the ‘It factor,’ man … Mitch Marner’s got it,” said head coach Jon Cooper. “There’s just never a doubt in my mind about throwing that kid over the boards, because he doesn’t disappoint.

“Sometimes your hair falls out at times, but in the end, he never disappoints.”

The Vegas Golden Knights winger, who spent nine years with the Toronto Maple Leafs that included plenty of playoff misery before a long walk out the door last season, sliced through the Czech defence and whipped a backhand far side to set the Canadian contingent in Italy alight.

“Pretty special,” said Marner, who scored an overtime goal in last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off against Sweden and set up Connor McDavid’s winner in the final versus the United States. “Cool to just contribute and make a play when you need it. There’s so many big plays in that game that made it what it is.”

Marner was chastised with the Maple Leafs for post-season flops in big games, but again stepped up for his country.

“As a teammate, I haven’t experienced that,” Mark Stone, another Golden Knights forward in Milan playing for Canada, said of the Marner-in-the-clutch narrative. “I think it’s a Toronto thing.”

Nick Suzuki tied the game 3-3 with under four minutes to go in regulation, while the 19-year-old Celebrini, with a goal and two assists, and Nathan MacKinnon provided the rest of the offence. McDavid added two assists of his own. Jordan Binnington made 21 saves.

Celebrini’s nine points in four games pushed him past Evgeni Malkin (six points in seven contests in 2006 with Russia) for the most by a teenager in a single Olympic tournament with NHLers. McDavid’s two points, meanwhile, gave him 11 for the tournament, tying the record for points by an NHL player at a single Games.

The early quarterfinal saw Slovakia defeat Germany 6-2, while Finland edged Switzerland 3-2 in overtime. The United States also needed overtime to down Sweden 2-1.

Canada will face Finland in Friday’s semifinals, while the Americans meet Slovakia.

In the quarterfinal loss to Canada, Lukas Sedlak, David Pastrnak and Ondrej Palat replied for Czechia, which topped Denmark 3-2 in Tuesday’s qualification round to make the quarterfinals. Lukas Dostal stopped 37 shots. Roman Cervenka chipped in two assists.

Tied 2-2 in the third, Palat took a pass from Martin Necas on an odd-man rush and fired it home from the slot past Binnington at 12:18, on a sequence where the Czechs had six skaters on the ice that went undetected by all four officials.

Cooper simply rolled his eyes when asked about a goal that never should have counted — and could have ended Canada’s dreams of gold.

The red-clad Canadians desperately pressed for the tie, and Suzuki got a stick on a Devon Toews point shot with 3:27 left in regulation for a brilliant five-hole deflection.

“A lot of joy,” said the Montreal Canadiens captain. “I wanted to do something to help the team.”

“When our country needed a goal, Nick Suzuki answered,” Cooper added.

To a man, Canada’s NHL stars — back at the Games for the first time in 12 years — believed they wouldn’t be getting on a plane home Thursday.

“But as the time keeps ticking, you’re like, ‘Holy f--- … this isn’t an ideal,’” said veteran defenceman Drew Doughty, a gold-medal winner with Crosby in both 2010 and 2014.

“I never stopped believing. And look what happened.”

Binnington denied Necas on a breakaway with Toews backchecking hard late in the third and made a big stop on Radim Simek in OT to set up Marner’s clincher.

“Gave us a very tough game,” Binnington said. “It’s good for us to experience this at this point in the tournament. Knowing from here on out it’s going to be a battle and we’ve got to stay with it and stick to our game plan.”

Crosby was injured five minutes into the second when his right leg bent in an awkward direction on a hit from Czech defenceman Radko Gudas.

The 38-year-old got back to his skates, but wasn’t moving well before receiving more contact along the boards from Gudas and Necas. Crosby, who set the all-time record for points by a Canadian NHLer at the Olympics on Sunday with 16, made his way to the bench and eventually limped to the locker room.

He didn’t join his teammates on the bench for the third, but addressed the group during the intermission.

“That sucks,” Doughty said of losing the team’s heart-and-soul leader. “The game goes on no matter who gets hurt. We even mentioned going out before the third, ‘Let’s try to win this one for 87.’

“Glad we did.”

Canada, which blanked Czechia 5-0 to open its tournament on the way to finishing as the No. 1 seed with a plus-17 goal differential, grabbed a 1-0 lead at 3:05 of the first when McDavid stole the puck from Pastrnak and found Celebrini in front for his fifth goal.

The Czechs, with a roster mix of NHLers and European-based pros, evened things at 8:34 off a Stone turnover in the neutral zone that Sedlak eventually tapped in.

Cervenka fired a shot off the crossbar on a power play, but Pastrnak blasted a one-timer at 14:49 to put Canada down at an Olympics with their NHL talent for the first time since the 2010 Games in Vancouver — a stretch of more than 800 minutes.

After losing their captain in the second, Canada finally made it 2-2 at 12:16 on a man advantage when Celebrini and McDavid teamed up to find MacKinnon, who changed the angle and threaded a shot in off Dostal’s far post inside a crackling rink peppered with Czech flags and red Maple Leafs.

The Canadians started to impose their will on the physical side, with Doughty thumping Pastrnak to the ice. David Kampf hit the post for the Czechs before Suzuki found iron at the other end on a wide-open net to set up a tense third and hair-raising OT.

Canada won Olympic gold with its NHLers in 2002, 2010, and 2014 before the league skipped the 2018 event. A planned return in 2022 was shelved by COVID-19 concerns.

The Czechs’ only victory over Canada at an Olympics involving the NHL came in a memorable semifinal shootout at the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan, when Wayne Gretzky, who was in the building Wednesday, wasn’t picked for an attempt.

The Canadians nearly suffered another Olympic heartbreak until Suzuki and Marner left memorable marks on a nation’s hockey lore.

“The group is super comfortable being uncomfortable,” Cooper said. “It was calm. Everybody had complete faith in whoever was going over the boards.

“It just felt it was like a matter of time … it was going to happen.”

By Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2026.