Today, the Canadian women faced the Swedish women’s team in their quarterfinal match at 8:10 AM Eastern time in Beijing. The game was another blowout for Canada, as they demolished the Swedes 11-0.
Canada was led by their potent offense and deadly powerplay, which is scoring on over 50% of their opportunities so far in these Olympic games. The game saw hat tricks from both Brianne Jenner and Olympics rookie Sarah Fillier.
Goalie Emerance Maschmeyer put up an 11 shot shutout, as the dominant Canadian skaters prevented the Swedes from ever really setting up their offense. It has to be pretty rare that the goalie has the same number of saves as their offense does goals.
Marie-Philippe Poulin and Sarah Nurse each had incredible games, with 4 assists each. Poulin especially was on fire, including a delightful royal road primary assist to Erin Ambrose for the 6th goal of the game, partway through the second period.
For the Swedes, they suffered a disheartening loss and really didn’t have the skills to establish anything in this game. It was really all Canada. In past big winning games, against the Swiss and the Finns, the Canadians were dominant also, but those teams at least had moments where they looked dangerous. In this one, that was not the case. Canada chased the Swedes goalie, the third time they’ve done that this tournament, as the rookie Ida Boman took over for Emma Soderberg.
It definitely looks like the Canadians are on their way to another Gold medal winning Olympics year, as both the veterans and the new faces have looked like perfect fits. Canada also expects to get their playmaking phenom Melodie Daoust back at some point before the end of this tournament, bolstering their strength. Daoust was injured in Canada’s second game against Finland, after a hard hit by Sarah Forster. Hockey Canada described her as “day-to-day”.
We still await who Canada will play next in the semifinals, as the teams will all get re-seeded depending on the results of the upcoming games. USA beat Czechia last night 4-1, after the Czechs got out to an early lead, but the Americans came back to get the victory.
Tomorrow, the Russian Olympics Committee will take on Switzerland, and Finland will face the Group B winning Japanese team, after which we’ll know what the semi final games will look like.