A recap of the second half of the action from January 13, 2025, day four of the IIHF U18 Women's World Championship in Sydney and Membertou, Nova Scotia. Read Part I here.
Canada 9, Sweden 2
This game looked like it was going to be much closer and hard-fought through the first period, but Canada was patient, took advantage of Sweden mitakes and put the game out of reach.
Sweden actually scored first as Moa Stridh struck early and put her team up 1-0 five minutes into the game after jumping up to intercept a pass. Rosalie Tremblay tied the game just about three minutes later on a snipe after charging up the wing.
Canada took the lead just after Sweden successfully killed a penalty when Tremblay hit the twine from the slot. That goal would prove to be a bit of a harbinger of what was to come. The Swedes did a good job of killing penalties early, but then failed to clear the zone when it expired. Tremblay's second goal and Canada's third, from Rachel Piggott, both came the same way.
The Swedes pushed back in the second as Tilde Grillfors scored a gorgeous goal on the breakaway to narrow the gap to 3-2. But that was as close as things would get. After a bumpy start, the second Sweden goal seemed to snap them out of it. Kate Viel, whose turnover lead to Sweden's first goal, got redemption with a laser through traffic and then Sofia Ismael scored to make it 5-2. That effectively put things out of reach, but if there was a glimmer of hope, that was extinguished when Sweden took two penalties in the final 2:10 of the second and Canada scored on the power play each time with Hayley McDonald and Ismael capitalizing on the advantage.
Ismael completed a hat trick in the third and Alida Korte scored a short-hander snipe to close out the scoring and secure a 9-2 win for Canada.
Next up: Quarterfinals. Sweden will face Slovakia at 9 am Eastern. Canada plays Finland at 7:30 pm Eastern.
What We Learned:
- No mistakes, no mercy – Sweden had played a very clean and smart game up until this point, but htey got sloppy and it cost them. They showed that they can play with Canada. But you can't make mistakes against them - they're designed to exploit and take advantage in those situations. The mistakes put the game out of reach.
- Elimination round is not group round – Ok, we didn't learn this in this game, but it bears repeating that Sweden lost to the US 6-3 in group play in 2023 before beating them 2-1 in the semifinals. Czechia upset Canada in the 2024 semifinals after losing 8-1 to them in the preliminaries. The way the bracket sets up, these two teams are on a collision course for a semi-final rematch and if I highly doubt it will go like this again. Sweden will have learned a ton from this game and honestly, they were a few wide shots and stupid penalties from this being a very different games.
- In-game adjustments – It can be really hard to overcome a deficit when you've never struggled against anything before. Sweden's early goal and Canada's early sloppy play turned into a blessing for the Canadians, who now have the experince of how to react to adversity. The evergreen reminder is that these are teenagers who are the very best on their home team. Now they have to fill different roles and be able to bounce back and make changes and frankly we see grown folks in the pros struggle with that on the regular. Seeing your mistakes, owning them and then making adjustments and corrections is not easy, but Canada did it well here and that will serve them in the coming rounds.
Standout Performances:
- Canada F Sofia Ismael – Even before she scored, Ismael stood out in this game. She plays with a patience and intelligence that I don't usually see until players are in their final years in college. She was cycling and recycling, maintaining possession, looking for lanes and generally not trying to force anything. You could see her assess a possible shot and then pass it up as too low probability then move around and try again. I loved her skating, her movement, her ability to hold the puck and her IQ in when to head to the net. It eventually paid off with two goals.
- Sweden F Maja Staring – She has been playing limited minutes, but she's trying to make the most of them. She plays like she has something to prove and she was really noticeable in her attempts to get the puck on net and later in the game. Her shot just wide in the second could have been a bit turning point in this game. Grillfors scored just after and a tie game at that point would have been interesting.
"They gave me a lot of o-zone time. I was really patinent with the puck and [Sweden] let me have it." - Canada F Sofia Ismael
"I feel more confident on the ice. I think I can bring a differnet game to this team. We responded to their first goal really well." - Canada F Rosalie Tremblay
"We were wainting for [some adversity]. To see how we were going to respond when we got scored against. We had a good esponses. The bench stayed pretty light. To be able to respond is important for us in this point of the tournament." - Canada coach Vicky Sunhara
"The team is definitely getting tighter off the ice and when that happens good things happen on the ice as well." - Sunohara
"No matter what line you play with, our game stays the same." - Sunohara
"She's such a smart player and she has such a great shot. She sees the ice. She moves the puck well. I think that she puts a lot of pressure on herself." - Sunohara on Ismael
"Her reloads, her backtracking, keeping her feet moving. She's really used to having the puck on her stick." - Sunohara on Ismael.
"We started very well but then we started to turn the puck over too often and they started to score. But it's all difficult to play short-handed so much. We took too many penalties. But we will learn from this and prepare for Slovakia." - Sweden coach Andreas Karlsson
"We're a good team and know after this game we can beat them. We had a good start. We wanted to work on that, and we are happy with that part of the game." - Sweden defender Selma Karlsson
Switzerland 2, Hungary 0
In all honesty, this might have been my favorite game of the group round. These were two evenly matched teams playing for their tournament life and they looked like it. There was so much pride and passion in this game. The Swiss celebration when they finally broke through and scored and again at the end of the game was so joyful and without affect. Just pure happiness and relief.
The teams fought back and forth for more than two periods. The game was a little choppy and messy as neither team really held the zone or dominated the other. Hungary's best chance came at the midpoint of the game as Switzerland took essentially back to back penalties - they overlapped for six seconds. They didn't really get a chance to take advantage of a five on three, but they did get four minutes on the power play and could not get the puck past Norina Schrupkowski in net.
Swiss captain Norina Müller broke through early in the third, but Hungary still had plenty of time and opportunity to get an equalizer and just could not put the puck in the net. Switzerland put the pressure on a little more with the lead, but Hungary had the puck on their stick in front of the net several times over the final minutes but oculd not get a clean shot off.
In the waning minutes, Hungary could not hold on to the puck long enough to pull their goalie, so they didn't have long with the extra skater. Regardless, Müller added an empty-netter to give Switzerland some badly needed points and keep them from the bottom spot in the Group A table which should effectively keep them from having to play in the relegation game.
That game features the two lowest seeds of the teams that lose quarterfinals. It's unlikely (though not impossible) that one of the lower seeds pulls an upset which means we're likely to see Hungary and Finland in the relegation game.
Next up: Quarterfinals. Switzerland plays Czechia at 12:30 pm Eastern. Hungary will face the United States at 4 pm Eastern.
What We Learned:
- All heart – Even with all the lopsided scores and bad beats in this tournament for the teams at the bottom of the standings, they still have a ton of pride and heart. There is a massive difference between this top tier tournament and the D1A tournament (Japan, who was relegated in 2024, has won their first two games in the D1A tournament happening concurrently in Italy 6-3 and 12-0). Federations don't give money and attention to teams that get relegated and teams don't get better by beating up on their opponents. For these teams to get better, they need to be at this level. The most emotion and pure heart I saw the first four days was in this game. Everything mattered and the players skated like it. In the end a bunch of folks won't even remember this game happened but it was one of those games I was happy I got to be there to watch and recount.
- Pucks on net – It felt like every time Hungary got a player in front of the net, the players up top didn't or couldn't get them the puck and when the players at the point did get a shot to the net front, no one was there. They simply couldn't make the connections they needed to make. When they could set up a screen, it felt like the shots were going wildly astray. Invariably, the bigger and more physical Switzerland team bodied them out of net front and Hungary would reset and try again. They just never seemed able to make the connections they needed to make - thorugh the netural zone, on passes and at the net front.
- Hockey dads are an international phenomenon – You know the dads that can't stand still and line the railing along the top of the rink? It turns out those dads exist everywhere. With the media seating being behind a net, I took my camera around the concourse for much of this game and was completely enamored of the passion and agony of both Switzerland and Hungary's hockey dads, who were going through it during this game. I'm of course being a little silly, but truly the universal language of hockey turns dads into crazies and I kind of love that.
Standout Performances:
- Hungary F Réka Hiezl – If anyone could have willed her team to a win or even just a goal, it was Hiezl. She had nine of her team's 31 shots on goal, 26 minutes on ice and was 11-7 in faceoffs. She was everything you want a captain to be.
- Switzerland F Norina Müller – It didn't have to be Müller that scored for Switzerland, but it was fitting that it was. Like Hiezel, she was the driver for her team through the group round. This is a loud and vocal group, including goalie Norina Schrupkowski screaming most of the game from the net. But Müller is the core and she keeps things calm amid the chaos. The game slowed down a bit when the puck was on her stick and some of the frenzy calmed down. I loved that her goal came from cycling the zone before picking a lane to move into and sniping the shot.
Quotable:
"It was very hard. We knew that it was going to be a tough game again, and after two periods it was still 0-0. We knew that it was going to be a very hard last period. We worked hard, and then we scored the first goal and stayed calm in the defensive zone. Finally, with the empty-net goal, we were lucky to win." - Switzerland assistant coach Patrick Gerber
"I'm very proud. Everyone was working hard because we know that if we're struggling in the offensive zone than we need to work even harder in the defensive zone and that's what they all did." - Gerber
"We worked a lot on shooting because the last two games we didn't score at all. We were working on that and giving them confidence because we know they can do it." - Gerber
"You really can see on the ice (Schrupkowski) gives us so much confidence that even if wer're not scoring too many goals that we can win a low-scoring game." - Gerber
"It was a great feeling to be there with my team to win this game all together." - Switzerland captain Norina Müller
"It was hard (to stay patient in this game) but I think we managed well to just go and never stop moving our legs." - Müller
"They were motivating us to stay patient, play together and get the puck on the net." - Müller on the message from the staff
"It's pretty emotional. I think we played really well today. We had our chances, but we couldn't score. It's tough, but that's part of the game. We have to take it, and we have to be stronger and better every single day. That's why we are here." - Hungary coach Zoltan Fodor. "
"It's really important to play that we play shift by shift. We had our chances. We generated a lot. Next time, I think we will score." - Fodor
(Photo: Nicole Haase)
