Ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics – Men's tournament


The men's tournament in ice hockey at the 2018 Winter Olympics was held in Gangneung, South Korea between 14 and 25 February 2018. Twelve countries qualified for the tournament; eight of them did so automatically by virtue of their ranking by the International Ice Hockey Federation, one, South Korea, automatically qualified as hosts, while the three others took part in a qualification tournament.
After five consecutive Olympic tournaments in which the National Hockey League allowed its players to participate in the Olympics and adjusted its schedule to accommodate the tournament, the NHL announced in 2017 that it would prohibit any player under NHL contract, including those not actually playing for an NHL team, from participating in the Olympics. The NHL secured the cooperation of the International Ice Hockey Federation and the IOC ensuring that nations would not be allowed to ask NHL players to participate.
Unlike the NHL, a vast majority of European leagues accommodated an Olympic break, headlined by Russia-based KHL's 33-day break, Sweden-based Swedish Hockey League's 14-day break, Switzerland-based National League's 25-day break, German-based Eishockey Liga's 26-day break, Czech Republic-based Extraliga's 18-day break and Slovakia-based Tipsport liga's 14-day break. Conversely, Finland-based SM-liiga did not accommodate a break, but allowed its top players to leave the clubs and participate in the Olympic Games.
The Russian national team, competing under the name of the Olympic Athletes from Russia, won the gold medal, defeating the German national team with a score of 4–3 in overtime in the final.

Qualification

, Russia, Sweden, Finland, United States, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Slovakia qualified as the top eight teams in the IIHF World Ranking in 2015.
South Korea qualified as host team. To field a competitive team, the South Korean government agreed to grant one American and six Canadian hockey players that were playing in Korean leagues dual citizenship to make them eligible for the national team. The remaining three teams qualified from qualification tournaments.

Qualified teams

;Notes

Rosters

Match officials

14 referees and 14 linesmen were selected for the tournament.
;Referees
;Linesmen
All times are local.

Tiebreak criteria

In each group, teams will be ranked according to the following criteria:
  1. Number of points ;
  2. In case two teams are tied on points, the result of their head-to-head match will determine the ranking;
  3. In case three or four teams are tied on points, the following criteria will apply :
  4. #Points obtained in head-to-head matches between the teams concerned;
  5. #Goal differential in head-to-head matches between the teams concerned;
  6. #Number of goals scored in head-to-head matches between the teams concerned;
  7. #If three teams remain tied, result of head-to-head matches between each of the teams concerned and the remaining team in the group ;
  8. #Place in 2017 IIHF World Ranking.

    Group A

----
----

Group B

----
----

Group C

----
----

Ranking after preliminary round

Following the completion of the preliminary round, all teams will be ranked 1D through 12D. To determine this ranking, the following criteria will be used in the order presented:
  1. higher position in the group
  2. higher number of points
  3. better goal difference
  4. higher number of goals scored for
  5. better 2017 IIHF World Ranking.
Team advanced to [|Quarterfinals]
Team play in [|Qualification playoffs]

Playoff round

Bracket

Qualification playoffs

The four highest-ranked teams received byes and were deemed the home team in the quarterfinals as they were seeded to advance, with the remaining eight teams playing qualification playoff games as follows. The losers of the qualification playoff games received a final ranking of 9 through 12 based on their preliminary round ranking.

Quarterfinals

Following the quarterfinal games, the winning teams were re-ranked F1 through F4, with the winner of 1D vs. E4 re-ranked as F1, the winner of 2D vs. E3 re-ranked as F2, the winner of 3D vs. E2 re-ranked as F3, and the winner of 4D vs. E1 re-ranked as F4. The losers of the quarterfinal round games received a final ranking of 5 through 8 based on their preliminary round ranking.

Semifinals

Bronze medal game

Gold medal game

Final ranking

Statistics

Average age

Team Canada was the oldest team in the tournament, averaging 31 years. Gold medal winner Team Russia was the youngest, averaging 28 years. The tournament average was 29 years and 6 months.

Scoring leaders

List shows the top ten skaters sorted by points, then goals.
PlayerGPGAPts+/−PIMPOS
Nikita Gusev64812+74F
Kirill Kaprizov6549+72F
Eeli Tolvanen5369+14F
Ilya Kovalchuk6527+54F
Patrick Hager7347–34F
Maxim Noreau6257+30D
Derek Roy6257–28F
Linus Omark4077+60F
Ryan Donato5516–12F
Jan Muršak4336–10F

GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; +/− = Plus/Minus; PIM = Penalties in Minutes; POS = Position
Source:

Leading goaltenders

Only the top five goaltenders, based on save percentage, who have played at least 40% of their team's minutes, are included in this list.
PlayerTOIGAGAASASv%SO
Jonas Hiller211:1941.149195.601
Vasily Koshechkin348:0881.3812693.652
Mikko Koskinen296:3881.6211793.160
Gašper Krošelj188:4461.918793.100
Ben Scrivens149:1741.615692.860
TOI = Time on Ice ; SA = Shots Against; GA = Goals Against; GAA = Goals Against Average; Sv% = Save Percentage; SO = Shutouts
Source:

Awards

Source: