Aerin Frankel stopped 21 shots for her third shutout of the Olympic women's hockey tournament and the favored United States advanced to the gold-medal game by defeating Sweden 5-0 at the Milan Cortina Games on Monday. Abbey Murphy, Kendall Coyne Schofield, and Hayley Scamurra scored on consecutive shots over less than three minutes late in the second period to blow the game open, the AP reports. Cayla Barnes opened the scoring and Taylor Heise also scored.
The Americans continued their roll through the tournament by improving to 6-0, outscoring their opponents by a combined 31-1. The US has yet to trail or be tied after 0-0, and is in position to become the third women's team to do so over the entire tournament, joining Canada in 2006 and 2010. The US also extended its shutout streak to 331 minutes, 23 seconds, going back to Czechia's Barbora Jurickova beating Frankel on a breakaway in the second period of a tournament-opening 5-1 win.
The win over Sweden sets up what could well be a seventh gold-medal showdown against Canada on Thursday. The defending Olympic champion Canadians play Switzerland in the day's other semifinal game. The US already beat Canada 5-0 in a preliminary round game last week. Canada's star player, Marie-Philip Poulin, was injured and could not play in that game, but she has since returned to the ice. The Americans won Olympic gold in 1998 and 2018, with Canada winning the other five tournaments. Sweden will play for bronze on Thursday in an effort to medal for the third time in team history, and first since winning silver at the 2006 Turin Games after upsetting the US in the semifinals.
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