(Laval) Canada’s women’s hockey team completed a spectacular comeback in their Rivalry Series encounter with the United States with a 5-0 win in Game 7 on Wednesday night in front of 5,639 fans at Place Bell.
A burst of four goals in the second period, including two by Blayre Turnbull in the space of 32 seconds halfway through the engagement, took the American team out of the game.
The star of the game was Laura Stacey, who assisted on both of Turnbull’s goals and the first of the matchup by defender Ella Shelton late in the first period.
Marie-Philip Poulin, with her 98e career with the senior national team, and Victoria Bach also scored for Canada, who did all that damage with just 18 shots on goaltenders Nicole Hensley and Maddie Rooney.
Called to protect the net for Team Canada in a second straight game, Ann-Renée Desbiens stopped 24 pucks for her sixth career shutout with Team Canada and her first against the United States.
This series of seven meetings, which served as preparation for the World Championship next April in Brampton, had started in November 2022 with three victories for the Americans in the northwest of the continent.
Canada had restored luster to the series by signing two wins, in Nevada and Los Angeles in mid-December, before winning 5-1 Monday in Trois-Rivières.
Canada bottled up
The start of the game on Wednesday night was unlike Monday’s, as a whole and also, more specifically, for the Canadian team.
First, there was the energy coming from the stands of Place Bell, much less felt than that which had emanated from the stands of the Colisée Vidéotron 48 hours earlier.
As for the Canadian hockey players, they had much more difficulty in imposing themselves in the first period, and even leaving their territory, bottled up by a forecheck performed brilliantly by the Americans.
Despite this, the latter were not able to seriously threaten the fortress of Desbiens and score the first goal, often so important.
That first goal came from Canada and Shelton with just under three minutes left.
Positioned at the mouth of the net, the Canadian defender managed to lodge the puck behind Hensley, extended at full length, on her second attempt.
Backfire
The Canadians doubled their lead with their first shot of the middle frame.
After receiving an accurate pass from Jamie Lee Rattray, Poulin fired a perfect wrist shot from the slot that crept over Hensley’s mitt at 3:41. It was his 35e goal in 82 career games against the United States.
Two Canadian shots later, the score was 4-0. Turnbull scored his first of the game at 10:26 by deflecting a shot from Stacey on a power play.
Thirty-two seconds later, Turnbull welcomed Rooney’s entry into the game in relief at Hensley by completing another maneuver from Stacey, despite Amanda Kessel at his side.
Before the end of the engagement, Bach made it 5-0 thanks to a backhand shot in the upper part, on a breakaway.
It only remained for the Canadians to pass the last 20 minutes to concretize the kind of comebacks out of the ordinary. Which they did with no problem.