Sweden beats Latvia to set up Olympic quarterfinal matchup with USA

Sweden has punched its ticket to the Olympic quarterfinals.

Gabriel Landeskog and Mika Zibanejad each scored and registered an assist to lead Sweden to a 5-1 win over Latvia in Tuesday’s qualification playoff round. The victory sends the Swedes to a quarterfinal date with the undefeated U.S. on Wednesday.

Despite finishing 2-1 in round-robin play, Sweden was bound for the play-in round due to goal differential — finishing behind Finland and Slovakia in the Group B tiebreaker.

But now, the stacked Tre Kronor squad will present an early test for the Americans in the win-or-go-home portion of the men’s Olympic tournament.

Beyond Landeskog and Zibanejad, Adrian Kempe, Filip Forsberg and William Nylander found the back of the net Tuesday against Latvia in a game Sweden never trailed.

Jacob Markstrom earned his second win of these Winter Games, previously starting Sweden’s victory over Slovakia in the round-robin.

Latvia’s lone goal in the game came from forward Eduards Tralmaks. The Latvians end the 2026 Olympics with a 1-3 overall record after beating Germany in round-robin play, but falling to the U.S. and Denmark.

Sweden-USA was the final quarterfinal matchup to be decided on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, Germany beat France, Switzerland beat Italy and Czechia beat Denmark to advance.

The other three quarterfinals will see Germany versus Slovakia, Czechia versus Canada and Switzerland versus Finland on Wednesday.