The final leg of the 2025 Rivalry Series has arrived, and as Canada and USA prepare to face off in Edmonton in preparation for the 2026 Olympics, it's shaping up to be a clash between experience and youth.
Youth versus experience. All teams question the balance. In the final stop for Canada and USA at the Rivalry Series ahead of the 2026 Olympics, the conflict between experience and youth will be on display on a larger scale as the nations have each leaned into different approaches to constructing their rosters.
How that roster building plays out in a one-game elimination style tournament like the Olympics is yet to be seen, but if USA can repeat their dominance from the opening games of the Rivalry Series, there will be no question who the favorite will be to win Olympic gold this February.
Canada Leans Into Veteran Experience
Canada continues to field an aging roster, and they haven't given much time or placed much developmental force behind their next generation. After leaving some of their older veterans at home for the first leg of the Rivalry Series, ten members of Team Canada are in their 30s compared to only five for Team USA. Returning to Canda's lineup this time around at 37-year-old Jocelyne Larocque and 34-year-old Brianne Jenner. Neither will make Canada faster, but both add a decade of international experience.
Can Canada's veteran savvy really slow down USA's youth and skill? If there's one team in the world thrilled that the organizing group for the Milano Cortina Olympics inexplicably botched the size of their ice surface making it more than three feet smaller than the rinks PWHL and NCAA players are used to, it's Canada, who now has three feet less to chase USA's young stars around the ice. Canada will be without Sarah Nurse, who is injured, and chose to leave behind Hannah Miller, as well as defender Micah Zandee-Hart, who was perhaps their most reliable defender in the opening games of the Rivalry Series, but they didn't replace them with youth, just with more experience.
It looks as though Canada will be leaning into this group, giving them one final chance at Olympic gold together before being forced to blow up the core of their roster in the next Olympic cycle. If the first stops of the Rivalry Series are any indication, Canada's reliance on experience over youth and skill could backfire.
If there's one benefit for Canada, it's that their roster will enter this two-game stretch more game-ready than they were in Buffalo and Cleveland after playing the opening weeks of the PWHL season.
USA's Mix Of Youth And Savvy Looks Solid
USA didn't need to announce a new roster for the final leg of the Rivalry Series because there just wasn't much that needed changing, or improvement. If anything, some of USA's players who might have struggled heading into the opening games of the series, whether they were NCAA stars, or PWHL veterans who had yet to hit game-readiness, have rounded into shape.
When you look at the combinations USA has in the mix, like the defensive pairing of Haley Winn and Megan Keller, along with netminder Aerin Frankel of the Boston Fleet, or their Seattle Torrent trio of Hilary Knight, Alex Carpenter, and Hannah Bilka, or their Minnesota Frost contingent of Kendall Coyne Schofield, Taylor Heise, Britta Curl-Salemme, Kelly Pannek, and Lee Stecklein, this group will also be sharper, and more potent.
Couple that with the fact that NCAA players like Caroline Harvey and Joy Dunne have been racking up conference and national recognition, and Abbey Murphy was the most dangerous player at the first Rivalry Series leg, and this team is ready to go.
Canada had no answer for USA's power play in the first games, and they couldn't solve USA's netminders.
When you realize that Savannah Harmon and Anna Wilgren couldn't crack USA's top eight to open the series, and that they left Patty Kazmaier winner and third overall PWHL pick Casey O'Brien in the press box while dressing 15 forwards, you can see the depth this nation is packing. They've found impressive chemistry, and there isn't a line that steps on the ice that can't produce.
Canada and USA will face off December 10 and December 13 in Edmonton, Alberta.