MILAN — The amazing thing is, relative to the other games Team USA has played at these Olympics, Monday counted as close.
Relative to any reasonable standard, of course, the Americans’ 5-0 beatdown of Sweden to advance to the gold-medal game on Thursday night was not close, or even within a football field of being close. But the women of Team USA have dispatched anything resembling a normal standard.
For starters, they have not given up a goal since 18:37 of the second period against Czechia, 11 days and five games ago. That’s a shutout streak of 331:23. At the Olympics.
So, what exactly made this semifinal, in which Team USA never looked under any serious threat, more competitive than the rest? Well, goaltender Aerin Frankel actually had to do some work, finishing with 21 saves, and the Swedes had a few stretches where they looked competitive and that’s about the end of the list.
The game held at 1-0 on Cayla Barnes’ opener until the last 10 minutes of the second, when a Sweden club that had been bending finally broke for good.
Team USA’s dominant line of Hannah Bilka, Abbey Murphy and Taylor Heise struck twice in a row to extend the lead to 3-0. First, the puck zipped from Murphy to Bilka to Heise off the rush and the latter’s shot trickled past Swedish netminder Ebba Svenson Traff at the 29:09 mark. A little over five minutes later, Murphy beat Traff from a sharp angle with a wicked wrist shot that went top-shelf into the corner.
For good measure, Kendall Coyne-Schofield added a fourth goal just 58 seconds after Murphy’s, tipping in Laila Edwards’ shot from above the slot and prompting Sweden to pull Traff for Emma Soderberg.
Hayley Scamurra added a fifth before the second intermission, and the score hung there for the remainder.
This, remember, was leaps and bounds more competitive a game than Team USA’s quarterfinal against Italy.
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In all likelihood, the Americans’ opponent for gold will be Canada, which it already dispatched 5-0 in the preliminary round. If there is a reason to think this one could be different, it’s that Canada played the first game without Marie-Phillip Poulin, its captain and arguably the best player in the world, due to injury.
The U.S., though, has looked all Olympics like it is driving a tank against soldiers with muskets. They are light years ahead of the competition. Odd as it sounds to say about a hockey game, a gold medal loss against Canada (or for that matter, Switzerland) would be like Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson or Appalachian State beating Michigan.