2026 Olympic Quarterfinal Preview: Finland vs. Switzerland

Finland will face Switzerland in the fourth & final quarterfinal on Saturday, February 14. Puck drop is set for 3:10 pm ET at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena.

Both teams were part of Group A this year and were guaranteed a quarterfinal berth. They’ll face off in the lone inter-group quarterfinal matchup, with the other three Group A teams squaring off against the top three teams in Group B.

Road to the Quarterfinals

Finland’s time at the Olympics has been… interesting, to say the least. About half of the team was either sick or quarantined due to norovirus at the beginning of the tournament, and their first match against Canada was postponed as a result. They won one preliminary round game, a 3-1 victory over this same Switzerland team. The other three games were all shutout losses, by a combined score of 12-0, to the United States, Canada and Czechia.

Finland’s goaltenders combined for a 0.882 save percentage, second-worst among all teams, behind only Japan. Sanni Ahola played the lion’s share, allowing 11 goals on 87 shots faced. In her lone action, Anni Keisala allowed two goals on 24 shots faced.

On the offense, Sanni Vanhanen was the only player to record multiple points, with a goal and an assist. Elisa Holopainen led the team with 10 shots on goal, while Nelli Laitinen averaged 21:49 ice time. Their power play was fourth-best in the preliminary round, as they scored twice on eight advantages. The penalty kill was fifth-best, allowing two goals on 10 disadvantages.

Like their opponent, Switzerland won one game in the preliminary round. Theirs was a comeback 4-3 shootout win over Czechia, which Emma highlighted in her recap here.

After starting off the tournament with a win, it unfortunately went downhill from there for Switzerland. A 4-0 loss to Canada was followed by a 5-0 loss to the United States. In their final preliminary round game, Switzerland fell 3-1 to Finland.

Switzerland’s special teams could definitely use some work. They scored one power play goal on six opportunities, but more notably, they had the worst penalty kill among all ten teams. Switzerland allowed five power-play goals against, finishing the preliminary round at 58.33% on the PK. But – on the flip side – they were also the only team to score a shorthanded goal. You take the good with the bad, I suppose.

Saskia Maurer played the bulk of time in goal for the Swiss, including the victory, putting up a .918 save percentage and 3.25 GAA in three games. Andrea Brändli made 45 shots on 50 shots in the 5-0 loss to the United States.

Up front, Alina Müller led all Swiss skaters across the board with three points, including two goals, and 13 shots on goal. Defender Lara Christen led her team in ice time, averaging 24:22 per game. Alessia Baechler wasn’t far behind here, at 24:06.

Both teams had a minus-10 goal differential in the preliminary round.

Where We Stand

Norovirus and its aftereffects are certainly part of the story for Finland throughout this tournament. Having their first game postponed and half of the team unavailable obviously wasn’t ideal. Having to recover from norovirus and immediately jump into Olympic hockey action simply cannot be easy.

Putting that aside, this is the only quarterfinal matchup that also played out during the preliminary round. As already mentioned, that was a 3-1 final in favor of Finland, who is also heavily favored in this game. Alina Müller had the lone Swiss goal, while Julia Liikala, Sanni Vanhanen & Viivi Vainikka scored for Finland. Sanni Ahola had 14 saves, while Saskia Maurer had 28 saves.

That said, even though Finland is heavily the favorite, there's always a chance in these one-off games that the underdog makes a play for it. Switzerland's program has made great strides over recent years, and these two teams met for the bronze medal in 2022. As of May 2025, Finland is ranked third by the IIHF in the world, while Switzerland is fifth. The gap is still there - but it's closing, slowly.