MILAN — A gold medal that seemed firmly in the grasp of the U.S. women’s hockey team nearly slipped through its fingers in the final of the Milan-Cortina Games on Thursday, but the Americans rallied to win 2-1 on Megan Keller’s goal just over four minutes into overtime.
Kristin O’Neill’s shorthanded goal less than a minute into the second period gave Canada its goal while Hilary Knight matched that for the U.S. with 2:04 to play, deflecting a Laila Edwards’ slap shot from the high slot through her legs and past Canadian goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens to send the game to the extra period.
The goal, Knight’s 15th in Olympic competition, broke the American record and came seconds after U.S. coach John Wroblewski had pulled his goalie for an extra attacker.
Keller then won it, taking a long Taylor Heise pass on the left wing, racing into the Canadian zone, stickhandling around defender Claire Thompson before beating goalie Desbiens cleanly.
The gold was the second in the last three Olympics for the Americans, who are ranked No. 1 in the world. Both have come against Canada while the victory was the eighth straight for the U.S. over their northern neighbor dating to last April’s world championship.
The overtime rules are unique for gold-medal games, with the teams playing three-on-three for 20-minute periods, with the first goal deciding the winner. Games cannot end in a shootout.
In the preliminary round, overtimes were limited to five minutes, followed by a five-round shootout. In the knockout stage, the overtime period was extended to 10 minutes, followed by a shootout.
None of that figured in Thursday’s result.
The young Americans, who had 12 women playing in their first Olympics, looked uncharacteristically rattled in a scoreless first period in which they took two penalties — one for too many players on the ice — and were outshot 8-6. It was just the third time in the tournament the U.S. went an entire period without a goal.
Things got worse 54 seconds into the second period when O’Neill outskated Edwards up the center of the ice on a breakaway, took a short centering pass from Laura Stacey, then deked U.S. goalie Aerin Frankel to the ice before beating her to her gloved side for the first goal of the game.
That snapped a 352-minute scoreless streak for the U.S. and marked the first time the Americans trailed in Milan.
For much of the game Canada was faster, smarter and more poised. And Desbiens was spectacular in goal. In Canada’s group-play loss to the U.S., she was pulled in the third period after giving up five goals. This time she came within two minutes of shutting out a team that had scored 31 times in its previous six games.