MILAN – The United States women’s hockey team will enter the gold medal clash with Canada on Thursday having not given up a single goal since its first game of the tournament.
Behind a stacked forward group and a deep defensive corps, goaltending is just another X factor for Team USA thanks to a trio of goaltenders — Aerin Frankel, Gwyneth Philips and Ava McNaughton — that is new additions to the Olympic squad.
Frankel has started in four of Team USA’s six games so far, stopping 67 of the 68 shots she’s faced.
“The team is playing so well in front of me defensively,” Frankel said after her 23-save performance Monday night against Sweden, which helped secure the Americans’ spot in the gold medal game. “They’re making my job easy, making the plays in front of me predictable so I can do my job. And I think we’re all just playing together as a group, and that’s our strength. This group is so good because of how we play together.
“So I think any time I can just focus on my job and let them do theirs, that’s why we’re finding so much success. And that makes us a pretty hard team to score on.”
The Americans will carry a shutout streak of 331:23 into the championship game against Canada, which dates back to the 18:37 mark of the second period of their first game of the tournament against Czechia.
Opposing teams have had their offense hampered by Team USA’s knack for dictating the possession game and having the puck on its sticks for a majority of any 60-minute affair.
It is a stretch of unprecedented dominance.
One that has headlined the tournament.
“I’ve been working for a long time on the men’s side, and if you want to compare them, it’s first-rounders,” Sweden head coach Ulf Lundberg said when asked for his opinion on the Americans. “All of them. All 23.”
Backup Philips, who got the starting nod in Game 3 and the quarterfinal matchup against Italy, has not given up a single goal.
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She stopped all 40 shots that Switzerland and Italy combined for against her.
Even third-stringer McNaughton made one save in relief against Switzerland.
“They’re awesome,” Joy Dunne said of the U.S. goaltenders. “Knowing that we have the depth in goaltending as well, you can trust them back there. We all make mistakes, it’s a game of transition. And so to know that they have our back back there, it means a lot.”