One of the five NHL players the Vancouver Canucks sent to the Olympics is coming home with some hardware.

Canucks goaltender Kevin Lankinen has captured a bronze medal as Finland beat Slovakia in the bronze medal game in Men’s Ice Hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan. While Lankinen didn’t get into any game action — Juuse Saros started in all five of Finland’s games — he was still on the roster, and thus, he earned himself a medal when Finland beat Slovakia by a final score of 6-1.

The Finns got goals from Sebastian Aho, Roope Hintz, Kaapo Kakko, Joel Armia, and Erik Haula — twice — while Tomas Tatar was the lone goalscorer for Slovakia. In goal, Juuse Saros stopped 30 of 31 Slovakian shots.

Finland fell to Canada on Thursday after giving up three unanswered goals after they jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the game. It was a bit of a heartbreaker for Finland, who were oh-so-close to punching their ticket to the Gold Medal Game, but they should be more than proud to capture bronze at this year’s tournament, especially given the fact that they were without Mikko Rantanen on Saturday.

Lankinen will now head home to join his Canucks teammates, who practiced earlier today out at UBC. Fellow Canucks Olympians Elias Pettersson, Filip Hronek, David Kämpf, and Teddy Blueger all joined the group today, and Pettersson and Blueger spoke about their experience at this year’s Olympic Games. You can read that story by clicking here!

While he didn’t get much action at the Olympics, Lankinen should see plenty of playing time down the final stretch of the 2025-26 season, as fellow Canucks netminder Thatcher Demko recently underwent hip surgery and is out for the rest of the season. It’s a good chance for Lankinen to get right, as it’s been a disappointing season for him, as he’s put up an .876 save percentage through 32 games this season.

After a strong first season as a Canuck last year, Lankinen signed a five year extension with Vancouver that kicked in this season. His contract carries a full no-move clause and an annual average value of $4.5 million.

Men’s Olympic Ice Hockey will wrap up on Sunday morning when Team Canada takes on Team USA for the Gold Medal. Check out our preview below!