Quick Olympic Thoughts: Czechia Advance without Radek Faksa

Radek Faksa's injury puts a small downer on a compelling game

Photo Credit: @Zdenek_Janda on Twitter

Radek Faksa suffered some kind of upper-body injury in Czechia’s final game of the tournament. As a result, he didn’t dress for Czechia’s elimination game against Denmark today.

We’ll wait to see what exactly Faksa’s status is for Czechia’s Wednesday tilt against Canada in the quarterfinals, but considering he didn’t even work out on the ice this morning, it’s hard to see him going from street clothes to game-readiness in 24 hours.

For the Czechs, Faksa’s absence made it that much more impressive when they held onto a 3-2 lead for all of the third period, despite Denmark’s mounting as decent a push as you could ask for. Not having your top penalty-killing center (and one of your best face-off guys) could have given Denmark a look at an upset, but Czechia managed to get the horse into the barn, giving themselves another 24 hours of Olympic life.

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Of course, for most NHL fans, the Olympic hockey tournament was always going to be looked at through a Canada vs. USA lens. The hockey equivalents of the Red Sox and Yankees of 20 years ago are the ones with the most NHL talent, the two countries where NHL teams reside, and thus, the ones with the most money to spend.

That last factor is also why it was something of a story that Canada ultimately decided to start putting its players up in a hotel rather than keep them in dorm-style accommodations in the Olympic Village. After all, if you have the resources, why not use them, if it helps you win gold? If you’re focused on winning, even an extra hour of deeper sleep could matter, in theory.

The USA has opted to lean into their grit-it-out ethos by staying in the Olympic Village (and perhaps, by playing Clayton Keller over Kyle Connor tomorrow). They’ve made a couple of choices from the roster-building on out that bespeak something of an affected underdog mentality. And of course, if they manage to take down Canada, everyone will lionize them for it.

But make no mistake: This tournament is top-heavy, and the USA are one of the top-est of the heavyweights. Here are the numbers: USA, Canada, and Sweden all have 25 NHL players on their 25-man rosters, while Finland has 24. Czechia is next on that list, with just 11.

That’s not to say that there aren’t great hockey players in leagues other than the NHL, of course. Far from it! But generally speaking, the best players want to play in the NHL if they possibly can, because that’s where

With Russia banned from IIHF (and Olympic) participation due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, there’s a stark divide between the top four teams in the tournament (who also played last February in the Four Nations Face-Off) and everyone else. And probably, there’s another (smaller) divide between the two North American teams and their two Nordic counterparts.

But until we winnow the field down to four teams (whoever those end up being), we get games like Tuesday, where Czechia boasted 11 NHL players on their Olympic squad, and Denmark just six. That sort of ratio makes for a more competitive and entertaining game than many of the necessarily lopsided matches we saw in the group stages, and this game delivered.

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Matěj Stránský nearly scored for Czechia in the first period, but Frederik Andersen played every bit like the goalie that beat the Dallas Stars in Jamie Benn’s very first playoff series back in 2014—the same year Benn would end up winning gold at the Olympics.

And that memory sent me down a rabbit hole from a decade ago, if you don’t mind following me.