The St Louis Blues have 3 of their players now competing for medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, and one in particular is shining enough to lead his native Slovakia to a bronze medal game appearance tomorrow morning. 20-year-old Dalibor Dvorsky is tied for the 111th-highest-scoring player at this year's Games, posting 3 goals and 3 assists for 6 points in 5 games, and it could add to that total when Slovakia faces Finland for bronze. After getting shelled 6-2 by Team USA earlier today, 3rd place seems like a good consolation prize for the Zvolen native. Dvorsky has excelled at this Games' tournament, so much so that he's actually set a record for most points by a rookie at the Olympic Games.
Dvorsky's record-breaking performance exceeded the likes of Alex Ovechkin (yes, that Alex Ovechkin) at the 2006 Winter Games, conveniently also in Italy in the city of Turin, and by Finns Sami Vatanen and Olli Maatta during the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. All 3 of them had 5 points, though it was only Vatanen who didn't find the back of the net. Dvorsky has also had superb support from another Slovak, the Montreal Canadiens' Juraj Slafkovsky, who's posted 4 goals and 4 assists for 8 points in 5 games, putting him 4th overall on the Games' leading scorers list.
In the regular season, Dvorsky has had a solid rookie campaign ever since being called up from Springfield, the Blues' AHL affiliate, where he notched 9 goals and 6 assists for 15 points in 47 games before the Olympic break at the beginning of this month. That ties his teammate and fellow Olympian for Team Switzerland, defenseman Pius Suter, who ended up posting a pair of goals and an assist for the Swiss team before they were eliminated in the quarterfinals by Slovakia's opponent for the bronze medal in Finland in overtime after the Colorado Avalanche's Artturi Lehkonen scored the GWG.
Both of these young Slovak stars, Dvorsky and Slafkovsky, are living out their childhood dreams, representing their countries for the first time, and both are still at such a young age with plenty left in their careers. Dvorsky is just 21 years of age, while Slavkovsky is 20, both still young enough for at least 2 more Winter Olympics in 2030 and 2034, which will be in the French Alps and then in the United States in Utah. On the other end of the bracket, two other Blues players will have a chance at gold, with goaltender Jordan Binnington and defenseman Colton Parayko playing the US Sunday morning.
For Dvorsky, an Olympic medal will be the first bit of major hardware he gets to put in his personal trophy case since the 2022 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, where Slovakia won silver with Dvorsky finishing 2nd in overall scoring in that tournament at just 16 years of age, making him one of the youngest players in the tournament. Dvorsky posted 8 goals and 4 assists for 12 points in 5 games, only trailing the Philadelphia Flyers' Matvei Michkov for Russia (8 goals and 5 assists for 13 points in the same number of games)