As the final buzzer sounded at the end of Canada-USA on Saturday night at Rogers Place a night that ended with a 4-1 USA victory, it not only officially signaled the first ever Rivalry Series sweep for either nation, it showed off how much is going right for American women's hockey at the senior level going into the Olympics. As much as Canada did look better defensively and cleaned up [https://thehockeynews.com/womens/international/canada-takes-positives-and-turns-attention-forward-to-olympics] much of the mistakes in their own end of the ice in the series finale, the 2025-26 edition of this series will still show the Americans outscoring Canada 24-7, with the top five leading scorers in the series not only being American but representing the future of the program. Three of the top five scoring leaders in the series were 25 or younger with Taylor Heise leading the way with nine points, Abbey Murphy with eight and Laila Edwards with six. The fourth win of the series saw the tide turn in the second period after a scoreless first where Canada was able to slow down the American offense until Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards were able to strike, with Edwards goal standing as the game winner. One of the happiest voices about Laila Edwards was easily U.S. head coach John Wroblewski who not only praised her offensive ability but what she was able to do in her own end of the ice to help seal the win. "She was so good tonight. I just think been so much noise around her moving to D and anybody that's saying that she should be a forward and this woman wants to play defense and this is what she wants to do and this is her career and people are trying to tell her what to do," said head coach John Wroblewski. "This athlete knows what she's doing and I couldn't be happier for her to validate, the goal was awesome and she's super unique with the way she can score but she defended unbelievably tonight too and she was fantastic on the breakout." To Edwards that work to become a complete player is something she wants to continue to evolve and she continues to be relied upon in big moments on the American roster. "I think the scoring is great but what I'm more focused on is rounding out my game so getting better defensively. There's still a lot of work to do but I think the rate of progress is good and I'm hoping it continues," said Edwards. USA national team member Haley Winn discusses being selected in the PWHL Draft While the play up front was one of the biggest stories, in net, the U.S. all series long had phenomenal goaltending. Both Aerin Frankel and Gwyneth Phillips put up a save percentage of above .920 while Frankel let the way in goals against average with a mark of 1.00. In the final game of this year's series, Frankel would get the start for the Americans and stepped up with a 23 save performance in the victory, an effort that brought the highest praise from her teammate Taylor Heise. "She's dominant, definitely her and Gwyn are the best in the nation, the country and the world. I'm proud of them and what we've been able to have backstop back there and even Ava McNaughton, she's someone in practice that locks in as well and we have three unbelievable goalies that show up every day and that's why we're so successful," said Heise. For both sides, winning multiple games in the other nation isn't an easy feat, but for the US in Edmonton they were able to find a way to completely shut down the home ice advantage in both games finding ways to thrive off being in hostile territory was big to Heise. "We don't have a lot of home ice advantage on the other side of the border so I would definitely say we take all either the boos the cheers, the laughs, we're going to take it to heart and we're going to roll from it. Our bench is so good at being lively and loving on each other and making sure we're also holding each other accountable," said Heise. To Hilary Knight someone who is going into her fifth and final Olympics, when asked about what made this team able to control a series in such a decisive manner against their greatest opponent to it was about this squad's ability to gel as a unit in various ways as a team that has established a strong bond. "I think we just enjoy one another's company, develop some great chemistry and we play together and we play quickly and we can plot our way up the ice quickly," said Knight. While this American side feels good leaving Alberta they know that there's a bigger task at hand to handle, but after a dominant performance over four games, the U.S. will head into Italy rightfully once again as one of the favourites to win gold.
