U.S. beats Canada 1-0 to open Rivalry Series

Canadian women’s coach Perry Pearn said there’s plenty of work to do before April’s world championships in Finland after his team was on the wrong end of a 1-0 score Tuesday night.

U.S goalie Alex Rigsby made 33 saves and Hilary Knight scored as the United States earned the tough victory over Canada in the opener of a three-game Rivalry Series between the two bitter foes.

“We said our approach to this series is we’re going to use it to help us get better for the world championships,” Pearn said.

“We skated pretty hard in the past two days and I think that was part of the plan. Maybe we’re a little bit rusty, but we tried to put together a group that had a little bit of chemistry from the (Canadian Women’s Hockey League). A quick shot here, a rebound there away from tying the game or potentially winning it.”

He noted consistency was an issue from period to period.

“The first 15 minutes of the first period and I thought probably the last 12 minutes of the third period we kind of had them on their heels, unfortunately we had a bit of a bad shift, the second-to-last shift of the game ... but other than that I thought we had the best of the play and controlled the opportunities.”

Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin said the raucous proCanadian crowd of 9,036 at Budweiser Gardens was inspirational.

“It was amazing, to be honest. When you hear the crowd going so loud you can’t even hear the coach talk between breaks, it just shows the support.”

The pace was quick from the opening faceoff through the end of the first period and, while the play was fairly even, Canada enjoyed the best of the scoring opportunities.

The closest the Canadians came to taking a lead was when Blayre Turnbull snuck behind the U.S. defence and cut in on Rigsby from the right face-off circle. Rigsby made a sprawling save to keep the game scoreless.