U.S. women's hockey blanks Sweden to play for Olympic gold - ESPN

MILAN — 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 a 2:47 span late in the second period to blow the game open and put the Americans up 5-0. Cayla Barnes opened the scoring and Taylor Heise also scored.

The Americans continued their roll through the tournament by improving to 6-0, and outscoring their opponents by a combined 31-1. The U.S. has yet to trail or be tied after 0-0, and in position to become the third women's team to do so over the entire tournament, joining Canada in 2006 and 2010.

The U.S. 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.

«I think we're looking incredible. The whole tournament we've really been consistent,» Scamurra said. «I don't even think we're at the peak, but I think our peak is getting that gold medal in hand for sure.»

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 U.S. already beat Canada 5-0 in a preliminary round game last week. The Americans won Olympic gold in 1998 and 2018, with Canada winning the other five tournaments.

The U.S. has had the recent edge in the rivalry between the sport's two global powers in having won seven straight dating to beating Canada twice at the world championships in April.

«Nothing matters. It's the