Hillary Knight, US dominate Finland in 5-0 rout

MILAN — The American women’s hockey team entered the Milan-Cortina Winter Games ranked first in the world. And after two group matches, it is shown that the ranking may be an understatement.

With their 5-0 win Saturday over No. 3 Finland, the undefeated Americans outscored their two opponents 10-1 and outshot them 91-25. Goals on Saturday came from Alex Carpenter, Taylor Heise, Megan Keller, Hilary Knight and Abbey Murphy. Keller and Laila Edwards each had two assists.

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In goal, Aerin Frankel faced just 11 shots to post the first shutout of the Olympic tournament.

Much like its opening win over No. 4 Czechia, the United States fought its way into the game before taking the lead late in the first period on a power play goal from Carpenter. The score came seven seconds after Finland’s Susanna Tapani was sent off for hooking.

The Americans doubled the advantage 2½ minutes into the second period, at the end of a fine passing sequence that saw Britta Curl feed Murphy, whose cross pass found Heise on the doorstep for the easy goal.

Sixty-six seconds later, Keller’s unassisted goal made it 3-0 and the rout was on.

Next came a power play goal from Knight, her 14th in Olympic competition, tying Natalie Darwitz and Katie King for the most in team history. Murphy closed out the scoring by hitting a rebound to the right post with less than five minutes to play.

With 10 goals, the United States is tied with Sweden for the most goals in the tournament, while the American goal differential of plus nine is the best. It was the 11th consecutive Olympic victory for the United States over Finland, the bronze medalist four years ago.

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