Canada optimistic about Poulin’s return, but loss raises uncomfortable questions

MILAN – Canada struggled to adapt without captain Marie-Philip Poulin during Tuesday’s 5-0 loss to the United States.

“We miss her in every aspect of the game,” said forward Sarah Fillier. “Her leadership, her character, the way she grinds it out, she sets the example for all of us. Hopefully we’ll have her back soon.”

“They’re still a phenomenal team, of course, but Poulin is an amazing player,” said USA defender Caroline Harvey, who opened the scoring on Tuesday. “I hate going against her. She’s just so good. Hope she gets better and gets back soon enough. You never like to see a player go down. Yeah, thinking of her.”

Team Canada coach Troy Ryan told TSN reporter Claire Hanna, who is working rinkside on the game broadcasts in Milan, that he’s optimistic Poulin will return during the tournament, although the team’s top-line centre is doubtful for Thursday’s preliminary round finale against Finland.

Canada will play its quarter-final game on Saturday.

Poulin left Monday’s game against Czechia early after sustaining a lower-body injury.

“She’s the heart of this team, but we have so many players that can step up and play well,” said goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens, who suffered her first Olympic loss on Tuesday. “We needed players to step up. We needed myself to step up and I didn’t do that.”

“She’s pretty irreplaceable,” said winger Laura Stacey, who is Poulin’s linemate and wife. “The best player in the world not on the ice, it makes a big difference. But we did a good job trying to stick together. There were moments we got frustrated, but at the end of the day we kept battling and that’s a lot to be proud of, and we’re going to grow from this. We’re going to learn.”

Canada has now lost seven straight games to the United States dating back to the 2025 World Championship. Even with Poulin in the lineup, Canada will be a clear underdog in any medal-round rematch with the United States.

“You gotta play with confidence,” said Ryan. “You gotta make confident decisions with the puck and live with the result sometimes. We probably, because of the speed and tempo of the game, made some decisions that were uncharacteristic. We got to manage the puck better.”

They also have to manage Abbey Murphy better. America’s expert agitator racked up three assists and drew four penalties on Tuesday.

“Just playing my game,” Murphy told TSN with a shrug. “My teammates allow me to play confident, play free. Everyone’s going to say, ‘Blah, blah, stay on your feet,’ but you can only do so much. Found myself in the right places and them doing whatever.”

“We gotta be smart,” said Ryan. “That’s what she does. She does it as good as anybody in the game. She draws attention and makes sure she goes down on some of those calls. We just got to be smarter in how we approach her and I’m sure the refs will be more aware as well.”

Canada may benefit from adding some of Murphy’s style into their game.

“We know that’s what she likes to do,” Stacey said. “We need to find ways to do the exact same thing, to draw penalties and get our power play on the board, because our power play has been cooking at a good rate. We got to take a page sometimes from that book too and do a similar thing. And we gotta keep playing physical. They don’t like it, their skilled players, so the more we can keep playing physical, and be careful with that line, the better off we’re going to be.”

“One of our strengths is to play physical,” Desbiens said. “We have to find a way to play a little more physical, be harder to play against. We did a good job of putting pucks behind their D, but it’s just having a retrieval plan after and find a way to get pucks in that slot area and put some pressure on their goalies as well.”

Nothing went Canada’s way on Tuesday, including a controversial goalie interference call. Kirsten Simms appeared to push Desbiens into the net while scoring USA’s third goal.

“I really thought she impeded my ability to play goalie,” Desbiens said. “She shoved me in the net and spun me around, but I guess they saw it differently and, at the end of the day, you need to put that behind you and move on.”

There was an initial review to see if the puck crossed the line before Canada challenged the call.

“We thought the goalie interference potentially happened before she was pushed in so we decided to go with that call,” Ryan explained. “Our penalty kill bailed me out, but if we’re in that situation again, we’ll probably make the same challenge.”

If all goes to plan, Canada will get another shot at the American challenge in the gold-medal game a week from Thursday.