US routs Germany 11-0, sets up matchup with Canada for gold

Friday’s final against the United States marks the 18th time in 18 championships the archrivals have clashed for gold.

Hilary Knight scored twice for the Americans, who won all three of their games in group play and will advance straight to Thursday’s semifinals, where they’ll face the victor of a quarterfinal between Russian Federation and Germany. Unsurprisingly, they’ll be playing Team Canada once again.

The Finns, who failed to medal past year, finished third for the 12th time in 18 tournaments since the events inception in 1990. It didn’t need that much time to finish the Canadians off with a second straight OT victory in a world championship gold-medal game. This was the Germans’ first year back in the top tier after earning a promotion in 2016.

In fact, lopsided scores are hardly unique to the women’s game-Canada pasted Latvia 10-2 at the men’s world juniors last December-and the talent gap was always going to take time to close.

Leading the way with two goals was Player of the Game Coyne, the 24-year-old forward from Palos Heights, Ill. who played for Northeastern University and was the 2016 Patty Kazmaier Memorial award victor for college’s best player.

Potomak, the youngest player on the team at 19, scored with just over a minute to go in the first period banging the puck by Raty from the slot. There’s no secret recipe. They are basically all of the goals that Team USA scored.

“We’re super motivated”, German goaltender Jennifer Harss said. We went through adversity and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

Keller received the 2017 Cammi Granato Award as the Women’s Hockey East Player of the Year.

The opposing teams, Team USA and Canada, are very familiar, each with plenty to prove and deep history. “If we play the way we can play, it doesn’t matter who’s on the other side”.

The Canadians edged the Americans 3-2 in an overtime thriller to win Olympic gold in 2014. The Americans dominated the start of overtime, using their speed to keep pressure on Canada. But, in their own semifinal match, they got their revenge against Finland, 4-0.

The Finland loss came right after Canada’s 2-0 opening loss to the Americans even though the US players had just 48 hours to prepare for the tournament after their talks with USA Hockey dragged on for two weeks. “They also have something to prove”. That won’t stop them from going for more. Our plan was to screen her, but I could see her most of the time, so obviously we needed more people in front of her. Over her previous 36 games in the World Championships, Bellamy had totaled just two goals. It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that Hockey Canada made the women wear pink Team Canada jerseys and socks at the women’s world championship.

Big Questions: How have both teams changed since the first game of the tournament, when the US dominated the Canadians for three periods?

“A great player. She’s gotten a couple goals this tournament, which is really nice to see”.

“Finally [we] scored more than one goal”.

Kelli Stack had a goal and two assists in Thursday’s semifinal win over Germany.

Switzerland had three different power plays in the first period, including a 5-on-3, but could not capitalize. That momentum shift was hard for the Swiss to overcome. Finland was tied with the U.S.in the third period before eventually losing. “We wanted to score first and get on the board, so it was big momentum for our team”. And we took a step back.

Any questions about how they would perform under that spotlight were quickly answered.

“It’s been a while since we won one of these”, Poulin said, “and we’re on a mission now”.

At 1:06 of the first period, it led to a goal. “We’re pretty neutral”, Räty explained in response to a question about the team’s subdued response.