MILAN — Before Monday night, it might have been uncouth to admit the goal for the U.S. women's hockey team has been an Olympic gold medal all along.
Now, after their sixth consecutive win has secured them a place in Thursday night's gold medal match, there is no reason anymore for the team to pretend otherwise.
"Now that we're here, that's the bullseye," said coach John Wroblewski after Monday's win.
The U.S. entered the 2026 Olympic Games as favorites to win the gold medal after a series of dominating wins over their rivals, Canada, the defending gold medal winners, over the course of the past year.
The Americans have lived up to that promise in this Olympic run so far. They have outscored their opponents 31 goals to 1 through six matches, the last five of which have been shutouts, an Olympic record. And their undefeated record includes a 5-0 win over the Canadians, their likely opponent in Thursday's final pending the results of a Monday semifinal match-up against Switzerland.
"Our play is only going to go up from here, honestly. I don't even think we're at the peak," said Hayley Scamurra, whose second period goal pushed the score to 5-0.
In the Americans' semifinal victory over Sweden, Team USA showed off their offensive capabilities during a four-minute stretch at the end of the second period. In quick succession, they doubled the score from 2-0 to 4-0 — first on a perfectly placed wrist shot by Abbey Murphy, followed by an Laila Edwards rocket from the blue line that tipped off Kendall Coyne Schofield's stick.
In a desperate move to save their shot at a gold medal, Sweden swapped out goaltenders — only for Britta Curl-Salemme to send a pass across the crease into the waiting stick of Scamurra for the final goal of the game.
"Maybe today we needed a plexiglass in front of our net to stay in the game," Swedish coach Ulf Lundberg said afterward.
That level of offense combined with six dominating performances by the team's two starting goaltenders, Aerin Frankel and Gwyneth Phillips, has led to a high level of confidence. "We can tell when we're on a roll. We can tell when we're buzzing," said defenseman Cayla Barnes after the game.
"The team is playing so, so well in front of me defensively. They're making my job easy, making the plays in front of me predictable so I can do my job," said Frankel, who played the entirety of Monday's game. "Any time I can focus on my job and let them do theirs, that's why we're finding so much success."
The U.S. has won two previous Olympic gold medals, one in 1998 and the other in 2018. Canada has won all five other Olympic tournaments.
An American gold medal would cap the historic career of team captain Hilary Knight, 36, who is playing in her record fifth Olympic Games. And it would give a new generation of young talent on Team USA — including the 22-year-old Laila Edwards to 23-year-olds Abbey Murphy and Caroline Harvey — their first golden achievement of what USA Hockey hopes will be a long and fruitful national team career together.
"It's so important that they've gotten that time and we've given them those opportunities because they're so confident when they get out there. You would never assume they're 20, 21, 22 years old," said Taylor Heise, 25. "I learn so much from them, and they keep me young at heart as well."
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