Key Highlights
- Team USA swept all four preliminary-round games by a combined score of 20-1 and brought back memories of how a Canadian team in their prime rolled to winning gold at the 2022 Beijing Games. The tables have since turned, and it was evident on the scoresheet from a roster that features seven players still in college. The University of Wisconsin’s Caroline Harvey had a goal and two assists, with Badger teammates Laila Edwards and Kristen Simms also scoring.
- The goal was Edwards’s first in her Olympic debut in being the first Black woman to represent the US. University of Minnesota captain Abbey Murphy set up three goals. Winter Olympics 2026 day four: Slovenia win ski jumping gold as Sweden’s Wranå siblings star – as it happenedRead moreAerin Frankel stopped 20 shots for her third win and second shutout in her first Olympic tournament.
- And even 36-year-old captain Hilary Knight added an assist – the 32nd Olympic point of her career to tie Jenny Potter for most by a US women’s hockey player. Canada, meanwhile, opened tentatively, and then ran into penalty problems without their longtime leader, Marie-Philip Poulin. Poulin was ruled out about five hours before puck drop, a day after she limped off with an apparent lower-body injury in the first period of a 5-1 win over the Czech Republic.
- The 34-year-old Poulin is considered day to day, though it’s unclear when the player nicknamed “Captain Clutch” will be available for Canada’s closing game of the preliminary round against Finland on Thursday. Poulin’s availability is also uncertain for Saturday, when Canada is scheduled to play their quarter-final. The US will open the quarter-finals against host nation Italy, which went 2-2 in clinching the third and final Group B playoff spot.
- The Americans are two-time Olympic gold medalists. Whatever “O, Canada” buzz there was amid a large Maple Leaf flag-waving capacity crowd quickly dampened on a drizzly day outside the 11,600-seat Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena.