Hilary Knight’s OT goal lifted the USA to the gold.
For the seventh time in the past eight IIHF World Championships, Team USA’s women’s national team are the champions. They defeated Team Canada for the second time in a row with Hilary Knight scoring the overtime winner to give them the victory, 3-2.
Only ten days before this championship took place, the team was boycotting playing any type of hockey under USA Hockey because they were not being paid a livable wage. Eventually, a four-year contract was signed which will grant them pay of $70,000 during years they do not participate in the Olympics and possibly up to $100,000 during years in which they do. This deal came together three days before the start of the tournament, where Team USA would play and defeat Team Canada for the first time.
Hilary Knight’s snipe for the overtime winner was a great one, you can watch it here.
https://gfycat.com/OldfashionedMatureLangur
Thanks to Reddit user Flintor for providing the gfycat.
With 3 shutouts in 5 games over the course of the tournament, Team USA outscored their opponents 18-5. Their preliminary victories came over Team Canada (2-0), Team Russia (7-0), and Team Finland (5-3). This placed them in the semifinals against Team Germany, who Team USA proceeded to completely dismantle by a score of 11-0. This led the team in to Friday night’s championship matchup against Team Canada for the gold medal, which of course was an overtime thriller ended by that Hilary Knight shot.
USA and Canada have met in the finals of this tournament 18 times since 1990, which is every IIHF Women’s World Championship tournament to take place since then. In that time Canada has 10 gold medals to USA’s 8. Finland took home the bronze medal this year for the 12th time since the tournament’s existence in 1990. Team Finland defeated Germany by a score of 8-0 in order to make it a dozen bronze medals. The three highest scorers of the tournament were all part of Team USA. Kendall Coyne and Brianna Decker each finished with 12 points in 5 games to lead the entire tournament. Coyne finished with the most goals, totaling 5 in 5 games. Third was gold medal overtime hero Hilary Knight, who scored 4 goals and 5 assists for 9 total points across their 5 games.
Sister of Stanley Cup champion and Pittsburgh Penguin Phil Kessel, Amanda Kessel of the New York Riveters hockey club scored 6 points in 5 games to help Team USA to their eighth gold medal.
