A Toronto connection from the Professional Women’s Hockey League contributed greatly to Canada’s 3-0 victory over Switzerland on Friday at the Women’s World Hockey Championship.
Emma Maltais and Sarah Nurse scored the first two goals for the Canadian team and Natalie Spooner participated in each of these goals.
These three forwards are teammates with Toronto’s LPHF team, which began its inaugural season in early 2024.
Sarah Fillier added an empty-net goal.
Emerance Maschmeyer, Ottawa’s number one goaltender in the LPHF, blocked 17 pucks in her first start of the tournament.
Canada (2-0) won less than 24 hours after defeating Finland 4-1.
Switzerland’s players remain looking for their first goal of the tournament, after two games.
Goalie Andrea Braendli stopped 43 pucks after making 51 saves in a 4-0 loss to the United States.
Troy Ryan, Canada’s head coach, continued to limit captain Marie-Philip Poulin’s presence on the ice by limiting her number of minutes of play.
Poulin missed the Montreal team’s final three games before the international break due to an undisclosed injury.
Maschmeyer withstood a barrage of shots after Braendli was replaced by a sixth attacker.
Canada led 2-0 after two periods and had 31 shots compared to just seven for Switzerland after 40 minutes of play.
Next match against the Czech Republic
The Swiss’ first shot of the game came during a power play late in the first period.
Switzerland had a two-player power play for 90 seconds early in the second period, following penalties to Nurse and Renata Fast for tripping. The Swiss did not know how to exploit this opportunity.
While Spooner made his presence felt in opposing territory, Nurse took advantage of a turnover by Swiss captain Lara Stalder to beat Braendli into the upper part of the net at 7:46 of the first period.
Maltais opened the scoring after just 70 seconds of play, jumping on the return of a Spooner shot. For Maltais, it was a second goal since the start of the tournament.
Canada will complete the preliminary portion in Group A with matches against the Czech Republic on Sunday afternoon and against the American team, the defending champion, on Monday evening.
The five teams that make up Group A and those that occupy the first three places in Group B at the end of the preliminary phase will advance to the quarter-finals on April 11.
The semi-finals will take place on April 13 with the medal matches following the next day.
Canadian teams have won 12 gold medals in 22 editions of the tournament and have appeared in all but one final.