The United States was eliminated on Wednesday in the quarter-finals of the Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament Beijing 2022, after losing on penalties to Slovakia (3-2).

Slovakia opened the scoring in the 11th minute through Juraj Slavkovsky, its 17-year-old star, who leads the tournament’s top scorer with five goals.

But the United States tied at the end of the first half (1-1), before taking the lead in the second half (2-1).

Slovakia tied at the extreme, forty seconds from the end, with a goal from Marek Hrivik, to force the extension (2-2).

In the penalty shootout, the Slovakian Petr Sihlarik scored the only goal to qualify his country to the semi-finals.

For the Beijing Olympics, the United States had to form a team without NHL players, who had not received the green light from the North American League to play these games, due to calendar changes caused by the pandemic.

The US team had to be made up of players from the League Championship and some European clubs.

“These guys are going to have a great future and they’ll be back here to represent America before you know it,” said former NHL veteran defender Stephen Kamfer of his younger teammates.

“But it’s going to hurt a bit for all of us,” added Kampfer, who currently plays for Akars Kazan in the Russian league.

The 33-year-old veteran was selected by the Anaheim Ducks in the fourth round of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.

On Friday, Slovakia will face the Russian team, which is competing under a neutral flag, which defeated Denmark in the quarter-finals (3-1).

With this elimination, the United States fell again in the quarter-finals, as happened at the Pyeongchang Games four years ago, thus remaining without an Olympic title since 1980, when it won the gold medal in Lake Placid.

add / diff / bsr / zm / d