Wednesday was a tremendous day of Olympic hockey if you were fortunate enough to watch it. All four quarterfinal round games were tremendous, with three of them going to overtime. As far as the Boston Bruins are concerned, there was jubilation and heartbreak all in one day.
Bruins players Charlie McAvoy and Jermey Swayman with Team USA and Henri Jokiharju and Joonas Korpisalo with Finland were lucky enough to survive overtime and advance to the semifinals, while Elias and Hampus Lindholm with Sweden were not, falling 2-1 in overtime to the United States. The same for David Pastrnak and Czechia, who took Canada to overtime before falling, 4-3.
ON TO THE SEMIS 🇺🇸 🇫🇮#WinterOlympics | #MilanoCortina2026 pic.twitter.com/U0Nc77MXTH
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) February 18, 2026
Team USA and Slovakia will meet in one semifinal on Friday at 3:10 p.m. EST, while Canada and Finland will meet at 10:40 a.m. in the other semifinal. The Bronze Medal game is Saturday at 2:40 p.m. EST, while the Gold Medal Game is Sunday at 8:10 a.m. EST.
Marco Sturm enjoying Olympic games
Despite having some of his top players playing over in the Olympics, Bruins head coach Marco Sturm has watched every game. I'm sure he's watching and hoping his players play well and get out healthy, but he also just enjoys watching hockey.
Coach Sturm has been DIALED into the Olympic Hockey 👀📺 pic.twitter.com/dBo9h1xD3t
— NESN (@NESN) February 18, 2026
While he's dialed in for his players who are playing, he also feels bad for Pavel Zacha, who suffered an injury a week before the Olympic break, which caused him to back out of the games for Czechia. It was a big loss for his home country.
“Timing is everything, and unfortunately, timing was not on his side,” said Sturm. “He and Elias (Lindholm) were in the same boat, and we didn’t know. Can they go, can they not? Elias ended up being fine (for Sweden). Pav just couldn’t so it’s very unfortunate. I know he was really bummed. You only have those opportunities once in a while, so we feel for him. But I think he’s just happy that he’s feeling better now and he’ll be ready to go for the stretch.”
Bruins call up prospect goalie
It's one thing to have some of your top players playing in the Olympics; it's another thing to have both goalies over there. That was the case for Boston with Swayman and Korpisalo both at the Olympics and now guaranteed to stay until the weekend before making it back to Boston. Because of that, the Black and Gold called up prospect Michael DiPietro from the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League for practice on Wednesday and likely a couple of other days.