The competition exists out of a single round-robin, each team playing another once, with a team gaining three points for a win, two points for a win after overtime, and one point for a loss after overtime. The top ranked teams of each group advance to the quarterfinals, together with the best-ranked second place. The remaining teams play in a playoff, with the winners also advancing to the quarterfinals. The quarterfinals, semifinals, and final are based on a single head-to-head match. The winner of the final wins the event.
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Twelve teams qualified for the event with Canada, Finland, and defending Olympic champions ROC as the top favorites for the event, especially after the United States were not able to select players from the NHL. Germany finished just outside of the medals at the most recent world championships and took a surprise silver medal in 2018, and could once again feature as one of the big outsiders, just like Czech Republic, Sweden, and Switzerland.
The Slovakian players Juraj Slafkovsky and Simon Nemec were the youngest competitors in the field and the only athletes younger than 18 years old at the start of the competition. They were over a year younger than Mason McTavish, who had just turned 19. On the other side of the spectrum, Andres Ambuhl was the most experienced player in the field, making his fifth Olympic appearance at the age of 38, a year older than Eric Staal and Valtteri Filppula, who also competed at the Olympic ice hockey tournament in 2010, and Frans Nielsen, who made his Olympic debut.
Finland won its first Olympic title in the history of the event, though the team had recently won silver and bronze medals in almost every edition since 1994, except for 2002 and the previous edition in 2018. The nation defeated the defending Olympic champions from the ROC in the final, with the neutralized athletes from Russia winning their second consecutive medal in the event. Slovakia was a surprise medalist, winning their first medal in the event since 1992, when it still competed as Czechoslovakia. 1994 and 2006 Olympic champions Sweden missed out on bronze after a 0 - 4 loss against Slovakia, with 1980 Olympic champions from the United States, 2010 and 2014 Olympic champions Canada, Denmark, and Switzerland missing out on the medal-contending rounds.
United States
China
Canada
Germany
ROC
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Denmark
Sweden
Latvia
Finland
Slovakia
