Canada’s National Women’s Team closed out preliminary-round play falling 1-0 in overtime to United States to finish 2nd in the Pool A standings with a record of 3-0-0-1. It’s the third time the cross-border rivals have gone to overtime after a scoreless 60 minutes. The other two times were both in the gold medal game of the 2005 and 2016 Women’s World Championship.
- Renata Fast (Burlington, ON/Toronto, PWHL) led all players with 25:18 of ice time.
- Sarah Nurse (Hamilton, ON/Toronto, PWHL) led all forwards with 18:47 of ice time.
- Natalie Spooner (Scarborough, ON/Toronto, PWHL) and Laura Stacey (Kleinburg, ON/Montreal, PWHL) registered four shots on goal each.
- Ann-Renée Desbiens (Clermont, QC/Montreal, PWHL) earned player of the game honours, stopping 29 of 30 shots.
- The U.S. narrowly outshot Canada 30-26.
Next Game:
Canada vs. Sweden (quarterfinal) – Thursday, April 11 (5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT)
Quotes:
“I don’t think we’re overly stressed about it [the loss] to be honest. It’s a really good game to end the preliminary round at the world championship. You come into the game obviously trying to win but you’re also trying to learn as much about the opposition in order to continue getting better. If you look at the game, I thought they were all over us at times in the first period. They looked fresh and they had a ton of speed. I think we learned a little bit about ourselves but also about them. That’s just how hockey goes, you’re going to get momentum and they’re going to get momentum. I thought we found ways to get it back in the second period. I loved our penalty kill to keep that momentum in the second and then the third was back and forth.”
- Head coach Troy Ryan (Spryfield, NS/Toronto, PWHL) on a competitive game against U.S.
“It definitely was very physical. The refs let us play and we played a lot of five-on-five and that’s kind of how you want to play them, five on five. Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way at the end but we can be proud of the effort we put forward tonight, we’ll learn and then get better.”
“Obviously, as a goalie, your goal is to always give your team an opportunity to win so that was my objective today. The girls did a really good job in front of me keeping them to the outside and making sure I could see the puck, so hats off to them on that, making sure they made my life easier back there and then when they needed a save I guess I was there to make sure we had a chance to win.”
- Desbiens on a physical matchup and assessing her performance
“For us the first period was not our best. We have to find ways right away in the first shift to put pressure on them, put them deep. We found a way in the second, but we have to find a way right away in the first period. Special teams are so important – our penalty kill did an unbelievable job tonight but on the powerplay is when we have to capitalize. We have to find ways to put pucks on net and get the momentum, even if we don’t score at least, we have momentum, we have to retrieve pucks and be better. It’s never fun to lose, it’s part of the process, it’s one day at a time this game is over and now it’s off to the quarterfinal.
- Marie-Philip Poulin (Beauceville, QC/Montreal, PWHL) on needing better starts to the game
