U.S. women’s hockey team falls 6-1 to Canada in decisive Rivalry Series game

The last time the U.S. women’s national hockey team won the first three games in its annual Rivalry Series with Canada and lost the next four — including a decisive Game 7 loss — it still won the IIHF World Championship two months later.

Can the United States do it again?

For the second consecutive time, the Americans won the series’ first three games and lost the next four, this time starting with a Game 4 shootout. On Sunday at Xcel Energy Center, they lost the seventh and final game 6-1.

“We’ll learn from this,” veteran U.S. forward Hayley Scamurra said. “Last time around, we won the world championship, so maybe we’ll recreate that.”

The 2024 IIHF World Championship is just two months away on home ice in Utica, N.Y.

“Anytime you play Canada, it’s going to be fierce and competitive,” U.S. winger Grace Zumwinkle said afterward. “Sometimes it’s a coin toss who’s going to win. Having the same outcome last year and winning gold in the world championship, it’s writing on the wall hopefully for a better outcome next time.”

Zumwinkle scored her team’s only goal late in the second period — shorthanded, no less — after the Americans trailed 3-0 and starting goalkeeper Nicole Hensley was pulled and replaced by Abbey Levy.

Afterward, U.S. coach John Wroblewski lamented the first two goals his team surrendered — both on power plays — to Canadian stars Natalie Spooner and Marie-Philp Poulin.

He called the special teams play, particularly penalty killing, “the story line of the series,” but said he was unconcerned about momentum, or lack thereof, heading to Utica.

“There will be a significantly different look for our club,” said Wroblewski, who played five young defenders in the series. “We’ll leave this. It’s an awesome event for fans and players, but it should not carry over to the belief in the title we currently have.”

Natalie Spooner scored Canada’s first and fourth goals, and linemate Emma Maltais had the Canadians’ fifth and sixth, both in the third period, the first shorthanded. Spooner also scored the only goal Canada would need Friday in the opening seconds of the third period in Regina, Saskatchewan.

She gave birth to her first child 14 months ago. Now 33, she plays for Toronto in the new PWHL and is a three-time Olympian aiming for her 10th world championship in April.

Spooner was asked whether she’s surprised by how well she is playing.

“I think it surprises me when people don’t expect me to be playing at this level,” she said. “I didn’t forget how to play hockey. I just had a baby. I’m healthy again now and just getting back to the way I was playing the last Olympics. I felt great there, and I feel the same now.”

The Rivalry Series was founded in 2018 to give Canada and the United States a competition against each other during long stretches between the Olympics and world championships. The two countries have played for the gold medal of every world championship and Olympics except for two: the 2006 Olympics and 2019 world championship.

Now with the arrival of the Professional Women’s Hockey League last month, they have a place of their own to play daily.

“We’re playing more hockey than ever before, which is what we wanted,” said U.S. winger Kendall Coyne Schofield, a PWHL Minnesota player who worked for years to see the new league come to life. “It’s not easy. We don’t use the world ‘professional’ lightly.

“In the old days, we’d wait three, four months for the next opportunity. Now, we get another crack at playing the game on Wednesday. The days go by quick. They’re long. They travel is hard on the body. But that’s what being a pro is.”