MILAN — For its first six games at these Winter Olympics, the U.S. women’s hockey team was unbeaten and unchallenged.
Yet for the first 58 minutes of Thursday’s gold-medal game, it looked unnerved — unable to score and headed toward a stunning upset against its archrival, Canada.
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Nine days after the U.S. had riddled Canada's defense for five goals in a group-play rout, that same Canadian defense had transformed into a stonewalling unit that had shut out the most unstoppable offense of the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Then Hilary Knight, the U.S. captain playing in her fifth and final Olympics, skated in front of the Canadian goal with two minutes remaining in regulation. Knight deflected a shot by U.S. teammate Laila Edwards into Canada's goal, tapping the puck between her legs to send the final into sudden-death overtime and giving the U.S. new life.
Three minutes into overtime, Megan Keller of the U.S. pushed the puck past Canadian goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens to end a 2-1 U.S. victory that instantly added another plot twist in the history of women’s hockey’s two superpowers, the only two nations to win Olympic gold medals since the sport made its debut in 1998.
It was the third U.S. gold medal in women's hockey all-time, and first since 2018. The U.S. is now 5-7 all-time against Canada in the Olympics, including 3-4 in gold-medal games.
U.S. players poured onto the ice after Keller's goal, turning the ice into an impressionist painting of blue dots, with arms waving and sticks and helmets flying. Clinging to life only 20 minutes earlier, the U.S. somehow revived itself to produce the gold-medal coronation that had appeared in jeopardy for much of the night.
The Americans entered Thursday having won seven consecutive games against their archrivals — and the most recent matchup, nine days before, had been a 5-0 blowout. They had outscored their opponents by 30 goals in these Olympics and produced five consecutive shutouts.
Unlike past Olympics, lengthy training camps were not possible for either the U.S. or Canada ahead of Milan because players were too busy playing in the three-year-old Professional Women’s Hockey League. Forced to quickly acclimate, the nations turned to their most recent experience together last fall, when they played a four-game “rivalry series” that the U.S. swept.
The U.S. roster was filled with players who were captains of their teams at various levels, from the 36-year-old Knight of the PWHL’s Seattle Torrent, to 23-year-old Caroline Harvey, a captain this season at the University of Wisconsin.
U.S. coach John Wroblewski was so unconcerned about how the players would mesh that prior to the Olympics he “challenged the players to arrive in Milan as if they were competing in an individual sport," he said. "To be as good with themselves, and to be able to walk around that village with their heads held high, knowing and they’re not just a part of a team, but they, they validated their selection to the U.S. Olympics (team). And the team component of things, I believe, takes care of itself.”
Still, if the U.S. felt it had a head start entering the tournament, it still had to perform once in Milan. They did that and more, winning their first six games while getting 30 goals from 15 different players. Defensively, the U.S. did not allow a goal in their last five games over an Olympic-record 331 minutes and 23 seconds.
While taking 254 shots to its opponents’ 95, the U.S. did not so much win but instead overwhelm — which made it all the more striking that Thursday, the U.S. spent much of the opening 20 minutes of the first period playing defense in its own end while being outshot, 8-6.
Taylor Heise, the U.S. forward, predicted days before the gold-medal game that their group-play rout of Canada from earlier in the tournament would have no carryover to Thursday’s result. That instinct was proven correct. Canada looked nothing like the roster that acknowledged confidence issues after that Feb. 10 loss to the U.S.
Aggressive and fast, Canada dictated the pace of play. The most telling example came one minute into the second period, when despite being down a player because of a U.S. power play, Canada’s Laura Stacey got a breakaway opportunity and passed to Kristin O’Neill just before the goal, leaving no time for goaltender Aerin Frankel to slide over to stop a 1-0 Canadian breakthrough.
The rapid-fire sequence represented a piercing of the Americans’ armor — the first goal allowed by the U.S. in 352 minutes and the first time it had trailed in these Olympics at all. It also caused a crowd flush with Canadian-red sweaters to erupt.
As the U.S. deficit settled in, the stunning contrast with how the game was unfolding compared to the recent one-sided nature of the rivalry evoked echoes of the 2002 Winter Olympics. The U.S. had entered the gold-medal game of that Olympics having beaten Canada eight consecutive times — only to lose to Canada with the gold medal on the line.
