Taylor Heise immediately saw the potential in Laila Edwards, long before she was selected to the United States roster and played in her first Women’s Ice Hockey World Championship.
Everyone did the same on Saturday.
The 20-year-old Edwards scored a natural hat trick in a 5-0 win over Finland in the semifinals, propelling defending champion Americans to their 23rd gold medal match.
“She stepped in a way that not many people can. And I’m very proud of her,” said Heise, who set up Edwards’ last two goals. ‘I’m glad she could prove that to herself. Because sometimes when you’re young and you get picked for a team like this, you need a goal like that to prove to yourself that you’re here for a reason. But we all knew that before.”
At 6-foot-1, Edwards is from Cleveland and the first black hockey player to play on the U.S. national team. Coming off her second season at Wisconsin, she is one of four Americans making their tournament debut and now has five goals to share the tournament lead with teammate Alex Carpenter.
“It’s pretty good, I would say,” Edwards said of her growing confidence. “Just trust in the team. So that always helps with my individual self-confidence. When our team is rolling and everyone is playing their best, sharing the puck and just doing all kinds of things, it really helps my confidence.”
Aerin Frankel stopped 15 shots and set a single-tournament record with her fourth shutout. Hannah Bilka and Savannah Harmon also scored for the Americans, who kept their perfect run intact by having appeared in every World Cup final since the tournament was founded in 1990.
The victory sets up what could be yet another high-profile rematch against the US’s cross-border rival Canada in Sunday’s gold medal match. The Canadians, who lost 1-0 to Team USA in the preliminary round on Monday, will face the Czech Republic, better known in English as the Czech Republic, later in the day in the other semi-final.
The two global women’s hockey powers have met in 21 of 22 world tournament finals, with the sole exception of 2019, when host Finland defeated Canada in the semi-finals before losing to the US in a 2-1 shootout. The Americans ended Canada’s two-year gold medal streak last year with a 6-3 win in the tournament played outside Toronto. (Canada defeated the US at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.)
“It doesn’t matter which team, it doesn’t matter what time it is, it doesn’t matter where we play. As far as I’m concerned, we could play outside,” Heise said. “We’re going to come out strong no matter what.”
Sanni Ahola finished with 50 saves in a match. Finland was defeated 55-15 in a match played in front of a mostly vocal ‘USA! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!” chanting crowd in downtown New York.
“We fought hard, but the US was very good,” Ahola said. “They were very strong and fast, so we try to survive. We didn’t have that many chances, but we should have taken better advantage of them.”
Despite leading 22-4 in the opening period, Finland had two scoring opportunities late in the frame. Frankel stopped Susanna Tapani’s shot from the right side of the net and then hugged the post to prevent Petra Nieminen from jamming the rebound.
The shutout was the fifth of Frankel’s career and she broke the tournament record of three shutouts first set by Canada’s Kim St. Pierre from 2005. She has conceded just three goals in five games this tournament, all in a 5 -3 win. over Finland in the preliminary round.
After Bilka scored 12:01 into the game, Edwards broke the game open with three goals in a span of 13:10, bridging the second and third periods.
Edwards gave the U.S. a 2-0 lead by beating Ahola high on the short side with a shot from the left circle for a power-play goal with 6:46 left in the second period.
Heise set up Edwards’ second goal 2:34 into the third period by driving to the net but was stopped by Ahola, who was out of position to prevent Edwards from converting the rebound. Four minutes later, Heise dug the puck out near the boards and gave Edwards a one-timer from the right circle.
Earlier in the day, former Northeastern University star and PWHL Boston member Alina Muller scored 4:07 into overtime in Switzerland’s 3-2 victory over Germany in a seeding round. The win means Switzerland retains its place among the top five countries in the A group, while Germany remains in the five-nation B group and will compete in next year’s world championships.