Women’s Worlds Day 6 Recap: Rattray’s shootout goal stops USA comeback short

Group A

Canada (3-1-0-0, 11 pts) 4, United States (3-0-1-0, 10 pts) 3 [SO]

Jamie Lee Rattray’s goal after nine rounds in the shootout was the winner as Canada beat the United States 4-3 on Monday night at the CAA Centre in Brampton, Ontario.

After Brianne Jenner and Hilary Knight scored in the shootout’s opening round, it wasn’t until Rattray in the ninth round that there was another goal on Ann-Renée Desbiens or Aerin Frankel.

“I’ve shot in a couple of shootouts in the past, but [Canada head coach Troy Ryan] just turned to me and said ‘Are you ready, Ratty?’ and I said ‘Yeah, sure,’ and I think after that I just blacked out,” Rattray said. “What a cool feeling and I don’t even remember what I did after because I was so excited; I just screamed out loud because that’s all I could think of”

The win secures the top spot in the group for Canada, and is their fifth straight win against the Americans.

“The most proud thing is we won as a team, everyone contributed and everyone made important plays in the game,” Rattray said. “We can leave it knowing we played a complete game. Obviously, we don’t want to give up two goals at the end, but we stayed calm and resilient and I think that’s something we can take away from this game.”

The United States had a furious third period comeback with two goals in the final 39 seconds, including the tying goal to force overtime with just four seconds remaining.

“It’s something I often say to teams that I coach that if the scoreboard falls from the ceiling, we need to act like we expected it to happen,” Ryan said. “I think our group has a pretty good mindset of that, and I thought everybody (athletes and coaches) did a great job. Everyone fell into their roles and kept things calm on the bench so I could share it with the officials. Although it never happens in that order, you’re usually prepared for it so, you talk through it, communicate as much as you can and it had no impact on us.”

Hannah Bilka opened the scoring for the Americans, beating Desbiens on the power play for her third goal of the tournament. The Canadiens tied it up a few minutes later when Sarah Fillier scored her fourth goal.

It stayed that way until the Americans got into penalty trouble in the second period. Marie-Philip Poulin fired a one-timer past Frankel on a pass from Erin Ambrose to give Canada the 2-1 lead.

Laura Stacey added an empty-net goal with 2:27 remaining, and it seemed that would be it, but the Americans responded with two quick goals with the goalie pulled, one by Hilary Knight and the tying goal from Amanda Kessel.

Desbiens, celebrating her birthday, made 26 saves in the win. Frankel made 33 saves for Team USA.

“As a goalie its always about stopping the next puck. Sometimes you have bounces that don’t go your way, but that’s out of your control,” Desbiens said. “You just focus on stopping the next one and that’s what I tried to do today. The team helped with their scoring and Ratty with a big shootout winner in the end, I was happy she got it. It was an interesting ending, a good performance from both goalies but happy to finish first in Group A.”

Switzerland (1-0-0-2, 3 pts) 4, Japan (0-0-1-3, 1 pt) 3

Switzerland came back from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to beat Japan in a pivotal Group A battle.

Alina Müller and Lara Stalder scored 2:57 apart to turn the game around for Switzerland, who face the Czechs on Tuesday in a game that will decide third and fourth in the group. Müller added two assists and Stalder had two points.

Remi Koyama and Yoshino Enomoto scored in the first period for Japan to give them the 2-0 lead. Switzerland came back with two goals in 21 seconds to tie it in the second before Akane Shiga scored to make it 3-2 before the end of the second period.

Andrea Brändli made 19 saves in the win. Riko Kawaguchi made 23 saves for Japan.

Japan will finish fifth in Group A and have no preliminary games remaining.

Group B

Finland (4-0-0-0, 12 pts) 5, Hungary (1-0-0-2, 3 pts) 0

Finland got goals from five different players as they rolled to a 5-0 win over Hungary on Monday. Jenni Hiirikoski scored her first goal of the tournament in the win, which clinched top spot for Finland.

The Finns will now face the third-placed team in Group A, while Hungary has a must-win game against Germany to qualify for the quarterfinals.

Sanni Ahola made 15 saves in the shutout. Aniko Nemeth made 27 saves on 31 shots before being pulled with under 10 minutes remaining.

Looking ahead

Germany and Hungary get things started on the last day of the preliminary round at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. It is a must-win game for both teams as Germany sits at six points and Hungary sits at three points. The top three teams make the quarterfinal round, and Sweden, Germany, and Hungary are battling for two spots.

Sweden gets France, who have yet to win a game in the tournament. If Sweden wins, they are in the quarterfinal and will avoid relegation. That game gets underway at 3:00 p.m.

At 7:00 p.m. Eastern, Czechia faces Switzerland in a game with awkward playoff implications. The team that wins the game will faceoff against Finland in the quarterfinal (the top team in Group B), while the team that loses will face Japan, who finished last in Group A.