Botterill assisted on the tenth Canadian goal, which came in the game’s final minute. Holding the puck at the right half-boards, she found teammate Dana Antal cross-ice on the left doorstop for the easy finish. After the score, Shewchuk patted Antal’s shoulder, turned back to Botterill and gave her a sharp nod of approval.
The 10 goals in two periods against Sweden gave Canada some offensive confidence that had been lagging following seven-goal efforts against Kazakhstan and Russia that were considered below the team’s potential.
“We’re jelling at the right time,” Shewchuk said. “We’re getting in front of the net, getting our sticks down to get those all-important rebounds. We’re coming along very nicely. We’re exactly where we want to be.”
Botterill’s three points led all Canadians in scoring. She stands tied for fifth in Olympic competition in that category. But Botterill was even more pleased that the scoring was so evenly spread out.
“We wanted to focus on finishing every play that we made,” Botterill said. “It was great because so many players contributed.”
And Botterill believes her long-stated goal of peaking just in time for the Olympics will be met. She told the Winnepeg Sun that she felt that Canada outplayed the U.S. in all but 10 minutes of the United States’ most recent pre-Olympic exhibition victory.
“I feel we’ve been catching up to the U.S. every game and believe if we play 60 minutes of great hockey we can win,” she said.
United States 5, Finland 0
The toughest opponent for the U.S. Olympic team during its first three games was not a player on the ice, but a flu bug that hit the team. The illness knocked U.S. defenseman Sue Merz out of Saturday’s game, and struck Ruggiero for a day, but she was back in time to provide the U.S. with two critical setups against Finland.
With the U.S. ahead 1-0 and shorthanded with Ruggiero and Tricia Dunn in the box, the Finns had came close to tying the game with some hard outside slapshots on U.S. goaltender Sarah DeCosta.
But DeCosta held strong and managed to work the puck to Ruggiero as she came out of the box. Despite a Finnish defender diving into the play and taking out Ruggiero’s feet, Ruggiero still managed to get the puck to Darwitz for a breakaway and a finish.
Darwitz had also scored the first U.S. goal. It came from Mleczko, who, while moving down the ice, brought the puck laterally to beat a defender and then dished to Darwitz, wide open at the crease. Darwitz, not one to waste chances, patiently brought the puck to her right and put in the open net after Finnish goaltender Tuula Puputti committed.
Finland was far and away the toughest opponent defensively the Crimson had faced. The Finns limited the U.S. to just one goal in each of the second and third periods—the only third-period goal coming when Ruggiero set up Princeton’s Andrea Kilbourne in the crease for a lucky backhand.
“The tempo today was extremely fast,” Ruggiero said. “This is the best competition we faced so far.”
But Finland didn’t have the offensive talent to give the Americans any serious test. Even on two five-on-threes—one in the first, one in the third—Finland struggled to attack to net. In the two-man advantage in the third, the Finns didn’t even muster a shot.
The real test for the U.S. will come in the medal round.
“We have to play two more games to prove our point,” Mleczko said. “Our ultimate goal is to be in the gold medal game Thursday and then to win it.”
—Material from the Associated Press was used in the reporting of this article.