Olympic Men’s Hockey Playoff Field Set as US Routs Germany

Team USA stayed undefeated at the Milan Cortina Olympics with a 5-1 victory over Germany in their final preliminary round game.

Despite the perfect 3-0-0-0 record, the United States finished as the No. 2 seed. Canada claimed the top spot thanks to goal differential.

The U.S. would’ve needed to beat Germany by at least 10 goals to overtake Canada for first place.

Tournament Seeding

The top four seeds advance directly to the quarterfinals. Everyone else must survive the qualification round first.

Overall seeding follows these criteria:

Higher position in group
Higher number of points
Goal differential
Goals for
IIHF world ranking

When teams from the same group have identical points, head-to-head records break ties. That’s how Slovakia won Group B over Finland and Sweden. Germany finished ahead of Denmark and Latvia in Group C using the same tiebreaker.

Seed	Team	Group	Pts	GF:GA
1	Canada	A	9	20:3
2	United States	C	9	16:5
3	Slovakia	B	6	10:8
4	Finland	B	6	16:5
5	Switzerland	A	5	9:8
6	Germany	C	3	7:10
7	Sweden	B	6	11:9
8	Czechia	A	4	9:12
9	Denmark	C	3	8:11
10	Latvia	C	3	7:12
11	France	A	0	5:20
12	Italy	B	0	4:19

Qualification Round – Tuesday

Eight teams face single-elimination games Tuesday. Winners advance to the quarterfinals.

Matchup	Time (ET)
Switzerland vs. Italy	6:10 a.m.
Germany vs. France	6:10 a.m.
Czechia vs. Denmark	10:40 a.m.
Sweden vs. Latvia	3:10 p.m.

Quarterfinals – Wednesday

Teams won’t be reseeded before Wednesday’s quarterfinals.

Matchup	Time (ET)
Slovakia vs. Germany or France	6:10 a.m.
Canada vs. Czechia or Denmark	10:40 a.m.
Finland vs. Switzerland or Italy	12:10 p.m.
United States vs. Sweden or Latvia	3:10 p.m.