2015-16 National Women's Team

CANADA BLANKED BY U.S. AT 4 NATIONS CUP

DAVID BRIEN

KOVLAND, Sweden – An offensive power outage cost Canada’s National Women’s Team on Thursday as it dropped a 3-0 decision to the United States in preliminary round action at the 2015 4 Nations Cup.

The Canadians held a 31-29 advantage in shots on goal, but couldn’t beat U.S. netminder Jessie Vetter.

As was the case in Wednesday’s tournament-opening win over the Finns, Canada generated shots on goal in the opening period, but couldn’t find the back of the net, sending the game to the intermission scoreless despite a pair of early U.S. power plays.

Canadian goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer (Bruderheim, Alta./Harvard University, ECAC) continued her strong play in the second, running her tournament shutout streak to more than 87 minutes.

The Americans finally broke through at 7:23 of the middle frame; Monique Lamoureux jumped up from her spot on the blue-line and went backhand to forehand to beat Maschmeyer.

Megan Bozek doubled the lead on an U.S. power play at 15:01, tapping in a cross-crease feed from Kelli Stack.

Canada had its chances throughout but failed to find the back of the net, dropping its third consecutive game to the Americans, including two at the 2015 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championship.

Kendall Coyne capped the scoring in the game’s final minute, finding the empty net with Maschmeyer on the bench for an extra attacker.

All four teams will enjoy a day of rest Friday before finishing up the preliminary round on Saturday; Canada returns to Sundsvall to close out the round-robin against the host Swedes (7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT).