Two conflicting thoughts from Canada’s Olympic semifinal win over Switzerland on Monday: There is no shame in Marie-Philip Poulin being the best player on your team; there is some shame in needing a one-legged 34-year-old in order to score a single goal.
Team Canada is used to being led by their "Captain Clutch," and in most international tournaments, that says flattering things about Poulin, the greatest player in the history of her sport. In Milan, though, it seems to say more unflattering things about the way Team Canada has been playing that Poulin was the team’s only scorer in a 2-1 game. When they face a rolling Team USA in Thursday’s gold-medal game, Canada will probably need a little more.
Poulin left Canada’s preliminary round game against Czechia last Monday after taking a bad hit into the boards. Though she would miss the rest of Canada’s round-robin games (including their shutout loss to Team USA), head coach Troy Ryan told reporters the team was optimistic she would return for the elimination rounds, and she was indeed back in the lineup against Germany in the quarterfinals, where she scored her 18th career goal at the Olympics, tying Hayley Wickenheiser’s record for most career Olympic women’s hockey goals. But she was far from healed: The Canadian broadcast of the Switzerland game showed Poulin being carted to the ice before puck drop—in too much discomfort to walk.
Not too much discomfort to score. Never too much discomfort to score. Poulin’s 19th career Olympic goal would open the scoring early in the second period against Switzerland. With a one-timer that took a fortunate bounce, she broke Wickenheiser’s record. Her second goal of the game was much greasier: Halfway through the second, Daryl Watts tried beating Swiss goaltender Andrea Brändli glove-side after winning a puck battle along the wall, and Poulin was in perfect position for the rebound.
If Poulin’s teammates were inspired by their hobbled captain’s resilient and history-making performance, it did not manifest as goal-scoring. Canada wouldn’t score again for the rest of the game, which only got nervier. Alina Müller, of the PWHL's first-place Boston Fleet, gave the reigning gold medalists a scare when she intercepted a puck behind Canada’s net and found her teammate Rahel Enzler alone in front of the net to make it 2-1. “They were shaky and beatable,” Swiss team captain Lara Stalder told the media afterward.
In Canada’s defense, it was mostly Brändli who kept Switzerland in the game. The Canadians outshot the Swiss 46-8. Brändli, currently playing in the Swedish league, faced 86 shots between the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, and only gave up the two goals to Canada after shutting out Finland. (Her teammates put a combined 22 shots on goal in those games.) But Stalder’s assessment wasn’t wrong: The Swiss had pretty good success limiting Canada’s transition opportunities and forcing their opponents to the perimeter, so that the shot volume belied lots of low-danger chances and pucks that easily found Brändli’s glove.
The Canadians will head into the gold-medal game under less encouraging circumstances than their rivals. Earlier in the day, Team USA beat Sweden 5-0 in their semifinal game, which became another showcase of their striking blue line. Always moving, driving the net, and jumping into plays, the U.S. defense is its greatest weapon and an example of how dynamic a team can be when its goals come from so many different places. Canada’s best source of offense is a pretty reliable one, but she’s still just one.
With all that said, I fully expect Marie-Philip Poulin to score a bullshit game-winner (assisted by Jocelyne Larocque) in a maddening gold medal game that Canada takes 2-1, after a 48-save performance from Ann-Renée Desbiens.
