Team Canada relying on veterans as it looks to regain women's hockey world championship
When the final buzzer sounded at Brampton's CAA Centre last April, Team Canada had to watch the Americans celebrating on Canadian home ice.
A hat trick from Hilary Knight propelled the U.S. to a 6-3 win in the final, ending a Canadian bid for three straight world championship titles.
A year later, the Canadi‐ ans have the opportunity to return the favour as their quest for redemption begins in Utica, N.Y., on Thursday when they face Finland in the first preliminary round game of the women's world cham‐ pionship.
Switzerland, the Czech Re‐ public and the United States round out group A, while Japan, China, Germany, Sweden and Denmark will compete in group B.
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Going into this year's tournament, Canadian GM Gina Kingsbury didn't see a need for major changes. She thinks the team had a strong performance in 2023, even if it didn't result in a champi‐ onship.
"I know we probably did‐ n't score as many goals as we're maybe used to from an Olympic perspective and that performance," Kingsbury said. "But I thought we played a really great collec‐ tive game all the way through. That gold medal game as well, I felt that we had control of that game for the majority of the game."
The Americans held an evaluation camp in Lake Placid, N.Y., last week to se‐ lect its roster.
Canada took a different approach, naming its roster in early March. Instead of a selection camp, the team gathered in Kingston, Ont., last week to start building chemistry and fine-tuning special teams.
A veteran roster
There will be plenty of famili‐ ar faces on Canada's roster, with 20 players returning from last year's team. Cous‐ ins Julia and Nicole Gosling will make their world champi‐ onship debut while Olympic gold medallist Ashton Bell re‐ turns to the blue line.
While the Americans will field a roster filled with lots of young, NCAA talent, Cana‐ da is bringing a roster filled with a bit more veteran tal‐ ent, from captain MariePhilip Poulin to Brianne Jen‐ ner, Jocelyne Larocque and Natalie Spooner.
"Some people may think we're too cautious in a sense and would love to see a lot more young players on our roster," Kingsbury said. "But we've got an incredible group of core athletes that have been with us for quite some time that have experience, that know how to win. They understand culture. They've established an incredible cul‐ ture with our program.
"So for us, it's making sure we bring up athletes that we feel are truly ready to com‐ pete at that level, and that will be successful at that lev‐ el."
Will the tweaks be enough to get past the Americans? Is this the year a Czech Repub‐ lic team on the rise will break through to the gold medal game?
Here are eight players to watch during this year's tour‐ nament:
Sarah Fillier, F (Prince‐ ton University, NCAA) Canada
Fillier is only 23 but is en‐ tering her fourth world championship. She was Canada's best player and tournament MVP last year, posting 11 points in seven games.
Projected to be the top pick in the 2024 PWHL draft, Fillier is one of Canada's best offensive threats, but she's also responsible defensively.
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"She's extremely smart," Kingsbury said.
Usually a centre, Fillier has spent the last few mon‐ ths playing on the wing at Princeton. It gives Canada's coaching staff more options to deploy one of the best players.
Taylor Heise, F (PWHL Minnesota) United States
Heise was MVP of her first world championship in 2022, when the Americans lost in the final to Canada.
Since then, she's only got‐ ten better. The PWHL's 2023 first-overall pick has been one of Minnesota's best play‐ ers this season, logging 11 points in 14 games.
It's no coincidence that the team's worst stretch this season came while Heise was sidelined with an injury she sustained at the Rivalry Se‐ ries in February. During her absence, the team lost three of five games. Minnesota is undefeated since she re‐ turned on March 3, and Heise has posted five points in those five games.
Heise's Minnesota team‐ mate, Grace Zumwinkle, could also be a differencemaker should she see the ice, thanks to her shot and ability to drive to the net with power.
Zumwinkle was left off last year's world champi‐ onship roster and despite being the PWHL's secondleading scorer, was chosen as an alternate on this year's USA team. She won't play un‐ less there's a serious injury to someone else on the Ameri‐ can team.
Noora Tulus, F (Luleå HF, Swedish Women's Hockey League) Finland
Finland returns to the more difficult group A this year, but boasts a ton of skill up front including Petra Nieminen, who has been one of the goal scorers in the world for a while now, and Vi‐ ivi Vainikka.
But it's worth keeping an eye on Noora Tulus, who led the Swedish Women's Hock‐ ey League (SDHL) in scoring with 61 points in 36 games this year en route to another championship for Luleå. Tu‐ lus is expected to declare for the 2024 PWHL draft, where she's likely to be a high pick.
Natalie Spooner, F (PWHL Toronto) Canada
Spooner has been playing the best hockey of her career this season with PWHL Toronto, where she's scored a league-leading 15 goals, and with Team Canada, where she had six points in three Rivalry Series games.
She's a quintessential power forward who uses her speed and skill to get to the net. She's difficult to move once she puts herself there.
"In and around the net, I don't know if there's very many that can compete with her in that area," said Kings‐ bury, who's also PWHL Toron‐ to's GM. "She's big, she's strong, she creates space."
Canada's coaching staff could reunite Spooner with Fillier, knowing the two have chemistry. Or they could bring back an all-PWHLToronto line of Emma Mal‐ tais, Sarah Nurse and Spooner that looked domi‐ nant at the Rivalry Series.
Adéla Šapovalivová, F (MoDo Hockey, Swedish Women's Hockey League) Czech Republic
Šapovalivová captained the Czech Republic's under18 team to history in January by beating Canada to get to the gold medal game for the first time.
Still only 17, Šapovalivová put up 29 points in 32 games with MoDo in the SDHL, where she played against players much older than her.
"She makes plays out of almost nothing," Jared Cip‐ parone, her coach with MoDo Hockey, told CBC Sports. "She's got a really good eye for goal scoring."
Šapovalivová has another year of play in the SDHL be‐ fore she joins one of the best NCAA programs, Wisconsin, in 2025.
"I think within five years, she'll be one of the best play‐ ers in the world," Cipparone said.
Kateřina Mrázová, F (PWHL Ottawa) Czech Re‐ public
Mrázová has been a big part of the Czech Republic's hard-to-play against identity over the last two world championships, earning back-to-back bronze medals.
Mrázová centres one of the best lines in the PWHL right now in Ottawa, where she leads the team in points.
"It was really apparent how smart she is as a player," Ottawa linemate Daryl Watts said of getting to know Mrázová. "She's got an edge to her, which is really fun."
That edge and skill, from Mrázová and other Czech players like Tereza Vanišová, could be the X factor in helping the team make its first gold-medal game.
Lina Ljungblom, F (MoDo Hockey, Swedish Women's
Hockey League) Sweden
Ljungblom, 22, was Swe‐ den's top goal-scorer at worlds last year. She fol‐ lowed it up with a campaign with MoDo in Sweden that saw her finish third in points across the league, helping MoDo to the league final.
A natural goal scorer, she'll be Sweden's best offen‐ sive threat. But she's also im‐ proved without the puck, ac‐ cording to Cipparone, her coach with MoDo.
"She was the leader of our team in terms of setting the tempo and how to play," he said.
A 15th-round pick by Montreal in last year's PWHL draft, she could find her way to North America in the near future.
Caroline Harvey, D (Uni‐ versity of Wisconsin, NCAA) United States
Arguably the Americans' best player in last year's tour‐ nament, 21-year-old Harvey is entering her fourth world championship.
She's fresh off helping Wisconsin to an NCAA final, in a season where she was named defender of the year in her conference.
The offensive defender led the U.S. in scoring with 14 points in seven games at last year's tournament, and should be a big part of this team for years to come.