Canada beats Sweden to reach Women’s Worlds semifinal

Canada got by Sweden to advance to the final four of the tournament and will face Czechia on Saturday for a spot in the gold medal game.

Canada once again proved why they are one of the best teams on the planet beating Sweden 5-1 to once again reach the semifinals of the Women’s World Hockey Championship on Thursday evening.

“We lost the special teams battle that I don’t like to lose,” Canada head coach Troy Ryan said post-game. “We definitely lost them tonight, there were just too many penalties to kill. I think because of the penalties the flow of the game was just blah.”

Canada took six penalties in a game where it seemed the officials were calling every single hint of contact between opposing players which caused a disturbance in game flow.

“I thought they did a relatively good job sticking with it and not getting too frustrated. A lot of times that would be the spot where a coach would step in and try and control things, but they just do that themselves. They are so good when things are low in the game, so I didn’t have to do a lot of talking. They just talked and worked themselves through it and found a way to stick through it in the third period.”

It didn’t take long for Canada to open the scoring as less than four minutes into the game Renata Fast managed to beat Sweden netminder Emma Soderberg five hole to give them an early 1-0 lead.

“I think a big part of it was just playing on our toes,” Fast said after the game. “We have been talking about it from the beginning of the tournament. I think Poulin told us we should all play on our toes, and I’ve had that message in the back of my head. Tonight, I just wanted to use my speed, be on my toes and I think as a team we did a good job of that as well.”

Three minutes later Laura Stacey doubled Canada’s lead when she drove to the net and got a pass from Blayre Turnbull and managed to snipe a puck into the back of the net. With 8:35 remaining in the first period Hilda Svensson got one back for Sweden as she was able to beat Emerance Mashymeyer who got the start tonight low glove side.

“Sweden did a really great job. They’re a physical team but they also have a lot of skill,” Mashmeyer said. “They’re opportunistic, they’ve scored some goals this tournament and I think their physicality turns into a lot of offense for them. Moving forward [to the semifinals] we just need to continue to build off our game. I think we’ve made some really great strides in the last few games. We just need to keep building and adding to our game – take what we did really well, get rid of what we didn’t and move forward.”

Eight minutes into the second period Fast scored her second goal of the game as she was able to fire a puck from the point that went top shelf on Soderberg. Canada added two more in the third scoring two goals in two minutes, with 6:04 left in regulation Natalie Spooner beat Soderberg five-hole and a minute later Jamie Bourbonnais made it 5-1 with a blast from the point.

Canada will now face Czechia for the second time in the tournament after the Czechs edged Germany earlier in the day 1-0, Canada beat Czechia in the group stage 5-0.

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Featured Image ©️ Lori Bolliger Photography