MILAN — This was an Olympic battle for the ages, and the titan prevailed.

Canada emerged from an all-time quarterfinal clash against Czechia with a 4-3 overtime win after Mitch Marner scored 1:22 into the extra period Wednesday at Santagiulia Arena. Recording the biggest goal of his life, Marner roofed a backhander on Czech goalie Lukas Dostal to avoid a colossal upset and send the Canadians to the semifinals.

After Finland, Slovakia and the U.S. won their respective games, Team Canada will face Finland on Friday.

“This is the Olympic Games. This is the best of the best,” Canada head coach Jon Cooper said. “This is why all the players want to come to this, because they want to show who they are, and they want to flex. And if you think you’re rolling through this tournament, you’re sorely mistaken. Yes, we like the fact that we won the first three games and didn’t have to play for the qualification game. Hell yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna keep on winning.

“It doesn’t mean because you got the Maple Leaf on your jersey that, ‘Hey, oh my gosh, you’re gonna be first.’ You’ve got to work to that. And the guys in there know it.”

The Canadians may have escaped catastrophe, but now there is a question of whether their captain will join them in the next round.

Sidney Crosby exited in the second period with a lower-body injury, after the 38-year-old absorbed a series of hits from a few fellow NHLers.

“Just keep good thoughts,” said Macklin Celebrini, who led Canada with a goal and two assists Wednesday, making the 19-year-old the second-highest point producer for his team behind Connor McDavid. “Hopefully he’s back in the next game. That’s our leader, our captain and the heart and soul of our team.”

The Czechs pushed the Canadians more than any other team has in the tournament.

Not only did Czechia take a 2-1 lead into the first intermission, but Ondrej Palat made it a 3-2 game with 7:42 left in regulation. Replays showed referees missed six Czechs on the ice, with four forwards facilitating the sequence. It was not penalized and the goal stood.

Nick Suzuki then executed an end-to-end play for Canada, tipping the game-tying goal in with 3:27 left in regulation to force overtime.

“Honestly it was very calm on the bench, guys stayed really positive,” Suzuki said. “I think that just comes from all the great leaders that we’ve got on the team.”

Just before Crosby was injured, Czechia did what no other nation has been able to do to Canada in an Olympic best-on-best contest in 16 years: take a lead.

When David Pastrnak blasted a one-timer past Canadian goalie Jordan Binnington on the power play, Team Canada’s outrageous streak of 805:01 without trailing in a single Olympic game — dating back to 2010 — was snapped.

Without Crosby, Cooper put Celebrini on the top power-play unit. That teamed the young superstar with Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Sam Reinhart and McDavid, whose two assists Wednesday night matched the most points ever in a single Olympics featuring NHLers (11 points in four games).

Celebrini earned the secondary assist on MacKinnon’s 2-2 score and on Suzuki’s game-winner, giving the second-year Sharks forward four assists to go along with his tournament-leading five goals.

Czech fans have been overwhelming in attendance through the early stage of the tournament, consistently outnumbering the opposing nation and draping the entire lower bowl in flags with different cities printed on each one.

That was until this meeting with the Canadians, whose vast majority of fans seemed to have waited until the elimination round to take over. For the first time all tournament, red, white and blue Czech flags were exceeded — this time by the red Maple Leaf.

The Canadians made sure their fans got what they came to see.