Team USA, Team Canada women's hockey to meet in group stage

The GIST: Keep your friends close, but your Olympic frenemies closer — we’re breaking down both sides of today’s 2:10 p.m. ET women’s hockey group stage game between tourney favorites and archrivals Team Canada and Team USA.

• Before the puck drops on perhaps the spiciest rivalry in sports, a quick reminder that all five teams in the top-tier Group A, including Canada and the U.S., advance to the quarter-finals, with the top three squads in Group B rounding out the eight-team playoff field.

🇨🇦 Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin’s injury looms large: Fans held their breath after an illegal hit sent the reigning PWHL MVP to the locker room in the first period of yesterday’s 5–1 win over Czechia. And they kept holding it when she briefly returned to the ice in the second period, unable to bear weight on her right leg.

• It’s certainly not ideal to have “Captain Clutch” sidelined, and Canada might choose not to risk the five-time Olympian’s health in their final two preliminary games, including today’s tilt vs. the U.S.

• Still, there’s plenty of firepower on this veteran-laden roster, including forward Sarah Nurse, who in 2022 set the Olympic record for most points scored in a single tourney. Notably, Nurse was injured for this year’s Rivalry Series, a four-game set that the Americans swept.

🇺🇸 Are the red, white, and blue the favorites?: In short, yes — even before Poulin’s untimely injury. Not only did the U.S. use the lethal combination of elite veterans and young talent to outscore Canada 24–7 in the Rivalry Series, but they also boast the top four scoring forwards in the PWHL, highlighted by the Minnesota Frost duo of Kendall Coyne Schofield and Taylor Heise.

• Add in the NCAA’s top lamp-lighter in Abbey Murphy and Team USA’s all-time Olympic women’s hockey leading scorer, captain Hilary Knight, and U.S. goals have come early and often, setting up another star-studded showdown. Let’s do that hockey.