Winter Universiade: Russian speed delivers first-ever loss to Canada Women's Hockey
GRANADA, Spain (CIS) – Team Canada dropped its first-everwomen’s hockey game in Universiade history Sunday night atMulhacen Pavilion, falling 3-1 to a Russian team featuring eightOlympians and the leading scorer in CIS this season.
Reigning three-time champion Canada drops to 1-1 with the loss,while Russia improves to 2-0 and takes top spot in Pool B in theshort, four-game Universiade tournament.
“I thought it was a pretty good game,” said Canadianhead coach Jon Rempel of the University of Manitoba.“They’re a very good team, and with a group as young aswe have with a lot of first-timers here, we battled hard and tookthe game over at the end. We got stronger in the second half of thegame but we just couldn’t find the equalizer at theend.”
Russian captain Iya Gavrilova of the University of Calgary Dinosscored the first goal and set the tone for a fast, physical game.Gavrilova currently has 37 points in 23 games for the Dinos thisseason, and she leads the Universiade in scoring with four goalsand three assists through two games.
Gavrilova’s goal, a rocket from the blue line on the powerplay, rewarded the Russians for their quick start. Anna Shokhinaadded another just three minutes into the second period to putRussia up 2-0.
But as the game went on, Canada started to take over, pepperingRussian netminder Yulia Leskina with 31 shots on the night, but wasonly able to put one past her. Playing its first game after afour-day break, Canada finished just one-for-eight on the powerplay and struggled to get quality scoring opportunities on Leskina,especially in their four opportunities with the extra attacker inthe first period.
Canada’s lone goal did come with the Russians in the boxas Breanna Lanceleve’s (Lower Sackville, N.S.) tally broughtthe score to 2-1 with eight minutes to play, but another late powerplay was unsuccessful and Russia added an empty-net goal from ElenaDergacheva.
“They defend well, they’re very organized, and youcan tell a lot of these players play together a lot,” saidRempel. “They are pretty cohesive in the way they killpenalties, and we haven’t had a lot of power play time,especially in game action, and that showed. We have to make someadjustments and move forward.”
Élodie Rousseau-Sirois (Pohenegamook, Que.) made 27 saveson 29 shots faced in the game in a losing cause for Canada. TheMontreal Carabins netminder did all she could to keep Canada in thegame, making key saves as the Russians tried to up the tempo afterCanada got on the board.
Canada will regroup to play in the semi-final round on Wednesdaywhere they will face the winner of Pool A, which will be determinedMonday in the last game of the round robin between Japan and China.Russia will face the loser of that game in the other semi-final,setting up the prospect of another Canada-Russia tilt for the goldmedal.
Rempel, for his part, isn’t looking that far ahead.
“We’re just going to prepare for the semi-final anddoing what we have to do there and not looking past that. There aretwo good teams sitting there and we’ll play one of them, soI’m not worried about these guys again right now. We’lldeal with them when the time comes – we just have to keepgetting better as a group.”
NOTES: Canada’s 22-game win streak dated back to thefirst-ever Universiade competition in Harbin, China in 2009... theRed and White had won both previous FISU Games match-ups againstRussia by identical 5-0 scores, with both games coming in 2013 inTrentino, Italy – including the gold medal game... Canada hadpreviously given up three goals in a Universiade only once, in a6-3 win over Slovakia in 2009... Canada opened the 2015 tournamentwith a 7-1 win over Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
Team Canada website: http://english.cis-sic.ca/universiade/winter/2015/index
Granada 2015 website: http://www.granada2015.org/en/
TEAM CANADA SCHEDULE & RESULTS (all times local / 6 hoursahead of EST)
Tuesday, Feb. 4 (20:30): Canada 7 Kazakhstan 1
Sunday, Feb. 8 (20:30): Russia 3, Canada 1
Wednesday, Feb. 11 (13:30): Canada vs. TBD (semifinal)
Thursday, Feb. 12 (16:00): Final (www.fisu.tv)
SCORINGSUMMARY
Official boxscore: http://wuni15.sportresult.com/HIDE/en/-60/Root/ViewPdf/IHW400B03_C74_4.0.pdf
Russia 3, Canada 1
FIRST PERIOD
SCORING:
1. RUS Iya Gavrilova (4) (Olga Sosina, Anna Shokhina), 8:18PP
PENALTIES:
Liudmila Belyakova (RUS) tripping, 0:58;
Sarah Casorso (CAN) high sticking, 5:07;
Jessica Kampjes (CAN) roughing, 7:23;
Ekaterina Ananina (RUS) illegal hit, 9:10;
Iya Gavrilova (RUS) holding, 13:50;
Diana Bulatova (RUS) illegal hit, 16:00;
Maggie Litchfield-Medd (CAN) illegal hit, 16:00;
Mariia Pechnikova (RUS) hooking, 17:58.
SECOND PERIOD
SCORING:
2. RUS Anna Shokina (2) (Elana Dergacheva), 3:46
PENALTIES:
Ann Shchukina (RUS) slashing, 12:09;
Ann Shchukina (RUS) cross-checking, 14:52.
THIRD PERIOD
SCORING:
3. Breanna Lanceleve (1) (Alex Normore), 11:52 PP
4. Elena Dergacheva (2) (Anna Shokhina), 19:29 EN
PENALTIES:
Morgan McHaffie (CAN) hooking, 4:40;
Olga Sosina (RUS) slashing, 10:56;
Liudmila Belyaova (RUS) cross-checking, 15:37.
GOALS (by period)
CAN: 0-0-1: 1
RUS: 1-1-1: 3
SHOTS ON GOAL (by period)
CAN: 12-7-12: 31
RUS: 13-8-9: 30
POWER PLAY:
CAN: 1-8
RUS: 1-3
GOALTENDERS
CAN – Élodie Rousseau-Sirois (L, 0-1, 29 shots, 27saves, 2 GA, 58:51)
CAN – Empty net (1:09)
RUS – Yulia Leskina (W, 2-0, 31 shots, 30 saves, 1 GA,60:00)
REFEREE: Kaisa Ketonen (FIN)
LINESMEN: Liv Andersson (SWE), Brienne Stewart (USA)
ATTENDANCE: 350
START: 20:30
END: 22:32
LENGTH: 2:02