Don’t be surprised if the last Rivalry Series game between the U.S. women and Canada has some extra spice.
The Americans are looking to sweep their archrivals, something neither team has done in the six-year history of the Rivalry Series. The Canadians, well, they’re trying to salvage some pride after being outscored 20-6 through the first three games, including giving up a record 10 goals in Wednesday night’s 10-4 U.S. victory.
“That should put a chip on our shoulder, that’s for sure; 10-4, it’s hard to find the positive,” Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin said after the game.
The U.S. women have had 12 different players score over the three games and 15 players get points. Abbey Murphy leads all scorers with five goals, including a hat trick in Game 1, while Taylor Heise has six assists.
This is the final game for both teams before the Olympic squads are chosen.
“I’m proud of the effort we put out tonight,” U.S. coach John Wroblewski said after Wednesday night’s game. “It’s never easy to play Canada and we definitely have things we can improve on as we move into the final game of the series.”
The USA and Canada will play the fourth and final game of this year’s Rivalry Series at 9 p.m. ET on Saturday, Dec. 13 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.
The game will be shown on NHL Network.
Abbey Murphy went off, scoring a hat trick to put the Canadians on their heels in the 4-1 win. Taylor Heise assisted on all three of Murphy’s goals and also had a goal of her own.
This time it was veteran captain Hilary Knight’s turn for a hat trick as the Americans won 6-1. Kelly Panek, Laila Edwards and Hayley Scamurra also scored for the U.S. women, who broke the game open with four goals in the final period.
It was a goal-a-palooza, the 10 goals from the Americans the most ever scored by either team against the other. After Canada struck first in the first period, the U.S. women responded with five unanswered goals. The Canadians scored three times in the second period to make it close, only to have the Americans score four in the final period.
Abbey Murphy and Kelly Panek each had two, and Tessa Janecke, Jesse Compher, Kendall Coyne-Schofield, Britta Curl-Salemme, Alex Carpenter and Kirsten Simms had one each.
The U.S. women and Canada have dominated the women’s game and, as of right now, are really the only real competition for the other.
They are the only teams to have won the Olympics or the world championships, and they’ve played each other in all but two of the gold-medal games. (Sweden beat the U.S. in the semifinals of the 2006 Olympics in Turin and Finland beat Canada in the semifinals of the 2019 worlds.) Canada has won 13 of the 25 world championships and five of the seven Olympic gold medals.
But the U.S. currently has momentum, winning two of the last three world titles, including an overtime thriller in the spring.
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