Lack of scoring a worry for U.S. women’s hockey team as Olympics approach

After scoring a mere two goals in their last three games — all losses to archrival Canada — members of the U.S women’s national team can’t fool themselves into thinking their level of play is good enough to win an Olympic gold medal at Pyeongchang two months from now.

Their 3-1 loss to Canada on Friday before a lively crowd of 6,098 at SAP Center confirmed that their offense has dried up and must somehow be revived before the Olympic tournament begins. The U.S. has won three of its seven pre-Olympic matchups against Canada, scoring one goal in an overtime loss on Dec. 5 and none in a 2-0 loss on Dec. 15 before being held to one goal on Friday. That goal resulted from a power play, when Hilary Knight slid a fine pass to Brianna Decker for a shot by the right post at 2:05 of the second period.

“It’s a problem. There’s no two ways about it,” coach Robb Stauber said, citing the three occasions when players missed the net from the slot in a determined but fruitless third period. “The good thing is, when it keeps happening, we’ve got their attention. There’s no denying the fact that we have to be better. We have to make it harder. You hit the net, you don’t score, there’s a rebound, you’ve got to reward somebody else that might be in front. There have been way too many chances that we haven’t taken advantage of. They know it, so that’s a great thing.”

Canada, which peppered U.S. goalie Alex Rigsby with 36 shots, did a better job of getting the puck to the net than Team USA. Canada pulled even at 1-1 on a fine backhander from the slot by Haley Irwin, took the lead on a goal by Sarah Nurse that was reviewed twice for possible goaltender interference but was allowed to stand, and clinched the victory on Marie-Philip Poulin’s good finish from the slot off a setup by Meghan Agosta. Stauber credited Canada — which is vying for a fifth straight Olympic gold medal — for making the right adjustments to bring life to its offense. Now, it’s up to his team to make its own adjustments.

U.S. captain Meghan Duggan said the lack of scoring was only one problem on Friday. “There’s a lot of other things we can be better at. We need to elevate in a lot of different areas. Obviously, goal scoring is one of them,” she said. “It’s a process. We’ve got to stick to our game plan and clean up some areas. I think we can be a little bit grittier, a little bit harder working in some areas, and the goals will come when we do those things.”

Knight agreed. “I’m sure it’s frustrating. As a forward you always want to put the puck in the back of the net. But there’s a lot of things we’re working on and we’re glad to sort of iron out the wrinkles now and figure out what works and what doesn’t work and then put our best foot forward come February,” she said, listing 50-50 battles and puck support as key areas in which they must improve.

The U.S. and Canadian teams will meet again, on Sunday in Edmonton, which is a quick turnaround. That’s not much time to fix what needs to be fixed. But Knight believes there’s enough time to remedy what ails the team before the Winter Games begin in South Korea.

“Absolutely. We don’t have a choice. It’s gold or bust for us,” she said. “We’re coming into this tournament mostly as underdogs. Yeah, we’re the No.1-ranked team in the world, but in terms of our Olympic performance in the last 20 years [no gold since 1998], it’s been a little stale, so hopefully we can bring home a gold medal this time.”

It’s certainly possible. “We’re disappointed in tonight’s outcome, but I believe in our team,” Duggan said. “I believe in what we’re capable of doing, and when we’re playing our best I feel like we can beat anyone. We just need to get back to that.”