While the Rivalry Series will go to the Americans, finishing the final game of this year's event in the win column is something Team Canada wants to ensure happens.
When the fourth and final game of this year's Rivalry Series gets underway on Saturday night, it marks the final competitive game for both Team Canada and USA before the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, with Canada looking to avoid dropping all four games in the series for the first time since the establishment of the series in 2018.
For Danielle Serdachny, one of the biggest things for Canada is being sharper in their own end of the ice. Team USA capitalized on numerous mistakes inside Canada's zone and generated constant high danger scoring chances that ended up in the back of the net behind both Ann-Renée Desbiens and Emerance Maschmeyer in the third game of the series.
"It was obviously a bit of a crazy game, I'd say. Something I haven't really seen before, but at the end of the day, I think we really need to bear down on defense and help our goalies out a bit," Said Serdachny. "I think we gave up too much, and it's hard to win a hockey game when you're giving up that much. I think moving forward, that will be a big focus for our group."
To battle back against a U.S. team that had nearly 10 different goal scorers on Wednesday night, Canada is going to need a stronger game from every line and pairing, something that Canada struggled to be consistent with in the 10-4 loss.
"I think our team has a lot of depth, so I think every single shift, everyone needs to be going regardless of how many minutes you're playing." Serdachny said.
While Canada did outshoot the Americans 34-29 on Wednesday and struck first inside the first five minutes of play, they struggled to keep that momentum on thier side. At five on five and on the power play, the Canadians failed to take advantage of U.S. mistakes (Canada went 1/5 on the advantage) while not pressuring the Americans in their own end enough, something that Brianne Jenner wants to see more of.
"We want to play more in their end, I think we had some good things in that first period but, what we gave them was grade A, and then we kinda continued as the game went on, so just finding ways to get pucks deep, being really physical, and kind of just establish our forecheck." Said Jenner.
A series that is already decided, there's more to it than Canada trying to avoid a sweep while the Americans look to complete one.
For Canada, this game is one of the final looks at what has to be sharpened before going overseas, while an American team with dynamic young talent supported by veterans wants to show that they can once again get the better of their decades-long rival and follow it up on the biggest platform for the first time since 2018.