The preliminary hockey rounds started Wednesday at the Olympics in Milan. With that, came two extremely exciting games that no one expected to be as intense as they were, Finland vs Slovakia and Sweden vs Italy.

Finland vs Slovakia

The first game of the whole thing ended in a 4-1 upset for the heavily favored Finnish team. With powerful NHL depth, they were expected to beat Slovakia, who besides a few NHL players, have relatively little depth and strength. Juraj Slafkovsky of the Montreal Canadians scored two goals and an assist to help Slovakia take Finland down in a tournament that’s just beginning. Finland will most likely reel it back in, with NHL superstars like Mikko Rantanen, Roope Hintz, and Sebastian Aho, but it’s hard to deny the quick start that could show us not to underestimate Slovakia in this tournament.

Sweden vs Italy

The most exciting of the two games, in my opinion, was the one that was supposed to be a blowout. Sweden overcame Italy 5-2, but the game was much more intense than the score made it out to be. The story of the day is Italy’s goalie, Damian Clara. He saved 46 out of 49 shots that he faced before hurting what looked like his groin on an incredible split save against an Elias Pettersson breakaway. Although being outshot, 60-22, Clara looked like he could have maybe pulled it off with a little more offensive help. Italy’s backup goalie came in after the injury and was lit up by the Swedish stars to help them solidify the win. Although Sweden controlled 95% of this game, it does not stop the fact that it was way more exciting than it should have been.

These two games make me very, very excited for the rest of this tournament, especially to watch the USA and Canada. We are only just getting started.