What. A. Day.

The quarterfinals of the Milano Cortina men’s hockey tournament did not disappoint, with three of four games going to overtime and a bunch of late-game rallies. When the dust had settled, all four top finishers remained; the same four countries that competed for medals at Vancouver 2010, with some new semifinal matchups. One Canuck remains in contention for a medal, with Kevin Lankinen the last player able to bring a medal home to Vancouver.

Let’s recap one of the craziest days of hockey the Olympics have ever seen.

Wow. It nearly all fell apart, but Canada found their heroics against Czechia in one of the best Olympic hockey games ever witnessed.

North Vancouver’s Macklin Celebrini got the scoring started with his fifth of the tournament, but the Czechs returned serve with back-to-back first-period goals from Lukas Sedlak and David Pastrnak, who finally arrived on the Olympic scene. The second period put Canadians in a cold sweat when Sidney Crosby left the game with a lower-body injury after a hit by Radko Gudas and didn’t return, but Nathan MacKinnon tied the game on a Canadian power play with Celebrini taking Crosby’s spot on PP1.

With both teams pressing in the third period, controversy ensued after the Czechs took a 3-2 lead off an Ondrej Palat goal with seven minutes to go, despite having six players on the ice for an extended period of time. Canada needed a trio of heroes to save the day, and the first was Nick Suzuki tying the game with just three and a half minutes to go. The second was Jordan Binnington, who made a breakaway save on Martin Necas in the final minute of the game to force OT.

And the third was Mitch Marner, splitting the defence and finding a room past the glove of Lukáš Dostál to give Canada a comeback win for the ages. They’ll move on to face Finland in the medal round on Friday morning at 7 AM. Whether or not Crosby will join them for it is anybody’s guess.

If there’s one team that will be searching for serious answers before the next Olympics in 2030, it will undoubtedly be Sweden. The Swedes seriously underperformed in this tournament, and never truly looked like they had control of their game plan. EP40 played just nine minutes in regulation for Sweden, seemingly stapled to the bench by coach Sam Hallam.

To their credit, Sweden hung in with the Americans for a lot longer than expected. Dylan Larkin drew first blood for the States at the halfway mark, but they wouldn’t solve Jacob Markstrom again in regulation in a 38-save performance. With a minute remaining and the goalie pulled, Mika Zibanejad put the puck past Connor Hellebucyk to tie the game and force OT.

Enter a name Canucks fans are all too familiar with: Quinn Hughes would score the game winner three and a half minutes into extra time to send the Americans on to the semis. All the concerns about Hellebuyck not being a big game goaltender are a little quieter now, and Team USA survived their biggest scare of the tournament and comes out better for it. They’ll face Slovakia in the medal round on Friday at noon.

In all the commotion of Canada’s big win over Czecha, an equally impressive comeback flew under the radar down the road.

Until the final ten minutes of this game, it looked like Swtizerland was about to pull off a major upset. Damien Riat and Nino Niederreiter scored a pair of first period goals less than 90 seconds apart to give the Swiss a 2-0 lead, and they held form until deep into the third period. But the Finns finally broke out late,  with Sebastian Aho scoring at the six minute mark to cut the lead in half, and Miro Heiskanen tying the game with 1:12 to go.

With the Swiss totally deflated, it took three and a half minutes for Artturi Lehkonen to spring free and beat Leonardo Genoni over the glove for the overtime winner. The win makes Lankinen the last Canuck remaining in the hunt for a gold medal, though he once again did not dress for Finland in this game.

This was the only quarterfinal game that wasn’t even close. The German program has certainly made strides in recent years, but they have a ways to go before truly competing with the big boys. And they learned that lesson the hard way today as Slovakia completely overwhelmed them in a 6-2 victory.

Pavol Regenda had a pair of goals for the Slovaks, while Leon Draisaitl and Tim Stützle were limited to just one assist between the two of them. One player who did get on the scoreboard was Lukas Reichel, who broke the goose egg with his second goal of the tournament after four unanswered Slovakia goals and assisted on Frederik Tiffels’ third period marker. Daliborr Dvorsky continued his strong tournament with a goal and an assist, while Sam Hlavaj made 25 saves in the win. The Slovaks will face the United States for a chance at a medal on Friday.