Canada uses Finns for target practice
Rout comes ahead of round-robin game against longtime rival United States
Finnish goaltender Noora Raty may be one of the best female puck stoppers on the planet, but her counterpart Tuesday night was well aware of the barrage Raty was about to face 200 feet down the ice.
Shannon Szabados is familiar with that Canadian attack, and the Edmonton native was hardly surprised at what that prolific offence did to Raty and the Finns in another decisive win for the fourtime defending champions.
“Noora’s a great goalie, but I face these girls every day in practice, so I know what they can do,” Szabados said after her team’s 4-1 victory at the Kwandong Hockey Centre. “This team’s in a good spot right now. We’ve got some amazing forwards with some poise and patience and some great shots.
“I’m not really surprised with what we’re putting forth.”
No one else should be surprised, given ability of the Canadian women to crank it up in an Olympic year. In improving to 2-0 in the tournament, they’ve now outscored the opposition 9-1 and have clinched a bye to next week’s semifinal.
Though Tuesday’s contest against the Finns was hard on the eyes at times — ragged play by both teams, an overabundance of whistles, some shoddy officiating and little flow — the Canadians still dominated.
This was the same Finnish team that defeated them 4-3 in a preliminary-round game at the 2017 world championship, but midway through this contest had managed just five shots on net. Canada outshot Finland 32-23 for the game.
With just the U.S. remaining in pool play, the Canadians find themselves in a preferential position.
“We’re happy with where we’re at, but we’re never satisfied,” Canadian coach Laura Schuler said.
“We always want to be better. That’s one of the great things about our girls that makes them so special. We’ve got great kids (nine rookies) and we’ve got great energy. There’s lots of real positives in our play.”
Schuler grumbled the familiar hockey coach’s lament that once her team took a 4-0 lead the players got a little too hungry for more goals at the expense of defence. That’s just being picky, however.
You know the Americans are well aware of how dominant their rivals have been, a potential psychological advantage for Canada going into a round-robin meeting with them on Thursday. The U.S. fell behind Finland in their matchup and needed an empty-net goal to record a 3-1 victory. The U.S. defeated the Olympic Athletes from Russia 5-0 in the late game on Tuesday, securing semifinal berths for both Canada and the U.S.
Veteran Meghan Agosta got things started just 35 seconds into the game, depositing the puck past Raty after taking a perfect 2-on-1 pass from Melodie Daoust.
“Every line has their own kind of chemistry,” said Agosta, who returned the favour with an assist on Daoust’s second-period goal. “It doesn’t matter who puts the puck in the net as long as we’re successful at the end of the game.”
Captain Marie-Philip Poulin and Jill Saulnier scored Canada’s other goals.
We think about games. We prepare for these games . ... Our goal is to be strong like the Canadian and American teams. We think about this, focus on this only.
OAR WOMEN’S HOCKEY COACH ALEXEI CHISTYAKOV, about not paying attention to the Russian foreign minister’s comments that the ban of Russian athletes from the Olympics over doping is part of an American consipacy to shut out tough competition.