USA women’s hockey team beaten by Canada before knockout stage

Marie-Philip Poulin capped a three-goal run by scoring on a penalty shot with 2:35 left in the second period, and Canada upended the defending Olympic champion United States 4-2 on Tuesday to claim the women’s hockey tournament’s top seed entering the playoff round.

Barring a major upset, the two global hockey powers are expected to meet once more in the gold-medal final next week.

In a fierce rivalry dating to before the women’s first Olympic tournament at the 1998 Nagano Games, and won by the Americans, the US and Canada put on yet another entertaining show at the Beijing Games in a fast-paced outing, with both teams trading leads.

Brianne Jenner scored twice, Poulin had a goal and assist and Jamie Lee Rattray also scored for Canada, who improved their Olympic record to 6-3 against the US. Anne-Renee Desbiens stopped 51 shots.

Alex Carpenter and Dani Cameranesi scored for the Americans. Maddie Rooney stopped 23 shots in getting her second start of the tournament. She’s the most experienced of America’s trio, and backstopped the US in the 2018 gold medal-winning game, but missed last year’s world championships while recovering from an injury.

Canada (4-0) and the US (3-1) are the tournament’s top seeds, and combined to out-score each of their first three opponents by a margin of 47-5. Their quarter-final matchups won’t be set until Finland plays Denmark to determine the Group B standings later in the day.

The game turned in Canada’s favor after Cameranesi, who converted her own rebound, and Carpenter, with a backhander on the power play, scored about two minutes apart to put the Americans up 2-1 with 11:34 remaining in the second period.

The Canadians answered 26 seconds later with Sarah Nurse’s spin-around backhand