Women’s Worlds Day 3 Recap: Poulin reaches another milestone as Canada wins

Editor’s Note: This was supposed to be a daily feature, but freezing rain in Montreal and subsequent power outages ruined those plans for the first two days of the tournament.

Group A

Canada (2-0-0-0, 6 pts) 5, Czechia (0-1-0-1, 2 pts) 1
Marie-Philip Poulin scored her 100th and 101st career goals for Team Canada as they won their second straight game 5-1 against the Czechs.

With 100 career goals for Team Canada, she joined Danielle Goyette, Jayna Hefford, and Hayley Wickenheiser in the exclusive club.

“Being included among those women is special, but tonight when I hit that milestone, coming back to the bench and seeing the smile on my teammates and seeing how happy they are for me personally is something that will stick with me,” Poulin said. “It is very special and doing on home soil is very special, but we also have a goal; we’re not done and we have a lot of work still to do here.”

“Obviously she’s a special player who is a game changer,” said Canadian head coach Troy Ryan. “She knows how to break a game open with her skill, her physicality and her passion, and [she is] a great leader. She’s the ultimate leader; the person she is, the character she brings, the player she is and the skill. Everything you want in a leader, she has it.”

Ann-Renée Desbiens made 14 saves for her second win of the tournament. Blayre Turnbull had a goal and three assists, with Renata Fast and Laura Stacey scoring the other Canadian goals.

Natalie Mlynkova scored in the first period for Czechia on a goal that briefly tied the game at 1-1. It was the first meeting at the World Championships between the two countries, as Czechia makes their first appearance in the A pool. The tie was short lived as Fast’s goal came quickly, just 27 seconds later as Canada finished the first period up 2-1.

“I think the first two periods really wasn’t our game or our style. We were on our heels a bit, but Czechia played great; they were fast and played us aggressive,” said Turnbull. “At intermission between the second and third period we talked about focussing on our style not only on the ice but on the bench. We got quiet in the second when things weren’t going our way, so our focus in the third was to celebrate the little things and get back to the smiley, happy Team Canada that we are. Czechia plays with a lot of confidence, which is impressive considering they are fairly new to this pool. I like the way they play; any team we play wants to beat us and they didn’t stop that, and I think it was fun to play a team that was hungry like them.”

United States (2-0-0-0, 6 pts) 9, Switzerland (0-0-0-2, 0 pts) 1

Abbey Murphy set a new women’s World Championship record for the fastest goal ever scored, scoring just seven seconds into the game. The previous record was 13 seconds from the 1994 tournament.

Caroline Harvey had two goals, and Murphy, Abby Roque, Gabrielle Hughes, Cayla Barnes, and Taylor Heise had multi-point games for the Americans. Nicole Hensley made 14 saves in the win. Saskia Maurer made 45 saves.

Group B

Finland (2-0-0-0, 6 pts) 3, Germany (1-0-0-1, 3 pts) 0

Finland continued their strong play and their push to get back into Pool A, reserved for the top five finishers of the tournament. Rosa Lindstedt and Emilia Vesa scored two goals 2:41 apart late in the first period to give Finland a 2-0 lead.

Viivi Vainikka scored a third goal for Finland in the second period. Anni Keisala made 16 saves for the shutout win and Johanna May made 40 saves in a losing effort for Germany.

Finland is now in a prime position to win the Pool as they also defeated France in their opener while Germany followed up their win against Sweden with this performance.

Finnish captain Jenni Hiirikoski was honoured before the game, which was her 400th career game for her country.

Looking ahead

Only two games on Saturday, with Sweden and Hungary facing off in a very important game for two countries looking to avoid relegation in Group B at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, while Canada takes on Japan in Group A action at 7:00 p.m.