Canada defeats Finland in women's hockey worlds tune-up
Squad opens 3-peat bid against Switzerland on Wednesday in Brampton, Ont.
Brianne Jenner, Emily Clark and Marie-Philip Poulin each scored, and Canada outshot Finland 23-19 to post a 3-1 win on Saturday in exhibition women's hockey at the Gale Centre in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Renata Fast chipped in with two assists for Team Canada, which is focused on winning the women's world hockey championship, scheduled April 5-16 in Brampton, Ont.
The teams, getting ready for worlds, missed a number of scoring opportunities and the power-play units looked like they might need some additional work, too, as Canada went 0-for-5 and Finland was 0-for-3.
The teams were scoreless after the first period and Canada led 1-0 heading into the third period.
Emilia Vesa scored for Finland.
"The game didn't go necessarily how we would want it to go, but when we look back on it now, there is a lot of good things that happened," said head coach Troy Ryan.
"A big part of some of our frustrations was the good things Finland did. They were clogging up the middle and they didn't sit back; they were aggressive and moved the puck well. We tried to force too many things and our passing was off, but as we started to spread things out in the offensive zone we started to look like ourselves."
Ann-Renée Desbiens and Emerance Maschmeyer split goaltending duties for Canada. Desbiens turned aside all seven shots she faced, while Maschmeyer stopped 11 of 12.
"It was a good exhibition game for us in the way Finland came out strong and played us physically. It was a style of game we haven't seen the past few years and it forced us to keep grinding and putting pucks on net," said Desbiens. "We had to stick with it for the full 60 minutes and we got better as the game went on."
Canada will open its quest for a third straight women's world hockey championship gold medal against Switzerland on Wednesday at the CAA Centre.
WATCH | Jenner leads Canada past U.S. for 2022 world title:
