U-18 Women's Worlds: Lopsided Results Highlight Day One

Day one of the U-18 Women's World Championships is in the books. It was a day highlighted by lopsided decisions in all four games.

It was the projected top four nations in the tournament – USA, Czechia, Sweden, and Canada – who earned opening day wins. The four winning teams outscored the losing nations 35-2.

USA was far too much for Slovakia trouncing the nation 13-0. Jane Daley and captain Maggie Averill each scored a hat trick and added an assist for the United States, while Kylie Amelkovich had six assists. Christina Scalese had a four point night and scored twice, while Talla Hansen scored twice and added an assist for Team USA. Annabelle Lovell, Madelyn Kimbrel, and Lindsay Stepnowski rounded out the scoring. 

Slovakia only managed five shots in the game. Their best opportunity to score came in the second period when Annabelle Lovell took down Nela Lopsanova who was awarded a penalty shot. Lopusanova was turned aside by Morgan Stickney on the penalty shot to preserve her shutout.

While it would have been easy for USA to take their foot off the pedal, head coach Courtney Kennedy was pleased with the start to finish effort of her team.

“I saw resilient effort throughout,” said Kennedy.  “I was impressed with their ability to be detail oriented throughout the entire game. There are still things we need to work on, but I’m very proud for us on game one.” 

Despite allowing the first goal of the game nearly 12 minutes into the game, Czechia rebounded and dominated Finland earning a 9-1 win. Tinja Tapani was Finland's lone goal scorer, which was followed by complete control from Czechia. Czechia peppered Finland's net with 53 shot. Adela Mynarikova scored twice and added two assists, while Tereza Gildainova had two goals and an assist to lead the way. Other goal scorers for Czechia were Adela Pankova, Ellen Jarabkova, Dani Brezinova, Andrea Kantorova, and Lucie Sindelarova.

The closest game of the day came with Sweden holding off Hungary for a 4-1 decision. In the opening frame, Tilde Grillfors forced a turnover before a tic-tac-toe passing play from Grillfors to Inez Nygren, with Ebba Hesselvall finishing on the back door. After Tilia Lindgren added to Sweden's lead, Reka Hiezl scored Hungary's first of the game to make the score 2-1.

In the third period, Moa Stridh gave Sweden insurance, which was followed by Grillfors first of the tournament. While the score was closer, and Hungary was competitive in the game, Sweden still outshot Hungary 34-14 in the game.

As an answer to the visiting nations who put on winning displays on the opening day of the U-18 World Championships, Canada opened on home ice with a 9-0 shutout win over Switzerland of their own.

Rachel Piggot opened the scoring for Canada and would finish the game with a goal and two assists. Piggot, alongside Alide Korte, who had two goals and an assist were the only Canadians to record three-point games. 

The rest of Canada's offense came from across their roster with captain Hayley MacDonald, Caileigh Tiller, Adrianna Milani, Laurie Aubin, Sofia Ismael, and Kendall Doiron had the other Canadian goals.

Despite the result, Canadian coach Vicky Sunohara sees ways her team can improve.

“We did not have the greatest of starts, but we settled into the game pretty quick. We are really focusing on ourselves and fixing little things, playing with people that we have not played with," said Sunohara. "It took us a bit, but we saw some good habits; that is the way we have to play, but we have to play for 60 minutes, and we did not do that tonight. We feel like we have a lot of depth on this team. Everyone is getting on the ice and we want to continue that with a lot of games in a short amount of time.”