Team USA heads to women’s hockey gold medal game, secures hardware for 8th consecutive Winter Olympics

Aerin Frankel stopped 21 shots in her third shutout of the women’s Olympic hockey tournament and the favored United States advanced to the gold medal game with a 5-0 win over Sweden at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday.

Abbey Murphy, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Hayley Scamurra scored on back-to-back shots over 2:47 late in the second period to break the game open and put the Americans up 5-0. Cayla Barnes opened the scoring and Taylor Heise also scored.

The Americans continued the tournament by improving to 6-0, and outscoring their opponents 31-1. The US has yet to trail or tie 0-0, and is on pace to become just the third women’s team to do so in an entire tournament, joining Canada in 2006 and 2010.

The US extended its shutout streak to 331 minutes, 23 seconds, going back to Barbora Jurickova of the Czech Republic beating Frankel with a break in the second period of the tournament’s 5-1 victory.

Monday’s game showed the dominance of the US but also the physicality of the team, with plenty of action on the ice.

The Americans’ victory over Sweden, followed by Canada’s victory later in the day over Switzerland in the other semifinal, set up what will be a seventh gold medal game against Canada on Thursday.

The US already beat Canada 5-0 in the first round match last week. The Americans won Olympic gold in 1998 and 2018, while Canada won five other championships.

Every Olympic gold medal game in women’s hockey, except one, has been the US vs. Canada.

This is Coyne Schofield’s fourth trip to the Olympics. Earlier he took home gold and two silvers. This is Captain Hilary Knight’s fifth trip to the Olympics. He has won the medal four times, taking home three golds and three silvers.

Knight, during the semifinal against Canada on Feb. 10, tied the all-time US women’s hockey record for most Olympic points. The 5-0 game was the largest margin of victory ever in US-Canada Olympic hockey, according to Team USA.

Sweden will play for bronze on Thursday in a bid for the third medal in team history, and first since winning silver at the 2006 Turin Games after upsetting the US in the semifinals.

Ebba Svensson Traff stopped 19 of 23 shots before being pulled after Coyne Schofield lifted Laila Edwards’ shot from the blue line with 3:50 left in the second period.

Emma Soderberg took over in goal and was beaten by Scamurra, who beat Britta Curl-Salemme through the middle 1:49 later. Soderberg finished with 10 saves.

Among those present was former NFL center Jason Kelce, who was shown on the board applauding Edwards’ kick off. Kelce is from Edwards’ hometown of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and he and his brother, Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, contributed to a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for Edwards’ family to attend the Milan Cortina Games.

Sweden has enjoyed success this year with a young, talented team that includes seven players competing in US colleges. Sweden went 4-0 to win Group B, then defeated Czechia 2-0 in the quarterfinals.

Although the Swedes kept the game close for 35 minutes, the Americans eventually wore it down.

And the US certainly didn’t look like a team that didn’t want to play Sweden, as coach Ulf Lundberg pointed out after the Swedes beat Czechia in the quarterfinals.

Although the Swedes kept the US mostly in first place in the first period, they were still outshot 13-2.

Barnes scored with a quick shot from the top of the right circle and beat Svensson Traff up the short side. Barnes’ goal was his first point of the tournament, leaving seventh baseman Rory Guilday as the only American skater to remain scoreless in six games.

Heise made it 2-0 at 9:08 of the second period with a shot past Hannah Bilka up the middle. Svensson Traff got his glove on the ball, but the puck deflected off his body and into the net off the inside of his stick.