Sweden, Czechia opens world women's hockey championship with wins

UTICA, N.Y. — Haley Winn scored twice while Hilary Knight had a goal and two assists, and the United States opened its title defence with a 4-0 win over Switzerland at the 2024 world women's hockey championship on Wednesday.

Knight is the tournament's all-time points (103) and goals leader (62).

Kendall Coyne Schofield, with her first international goal since returning from maternity leave, also scored for the U.S.

Aerin Frankel made 11 saves to earn a shutout.

Switzerland's Andrea Braendli stopped 51 shots against a high-flying United States offence.

“There’s a lot of respect there for Switzerland, they stood tough and blocked a lot of our shots coming out in the game,” U.S. head coach John Wroblewski said.

“We made some adjustments at the blue line to manufacture our offence. We diversified how we attacked in the offensive zone and it paid off.”

After a scoreless first period, Wynn got the Americans on the board 5:23 into the second.

Coyne Schofield doubled the lead later in the second before Knight and Wynn gave the U.S. a commanding lead in the third.

The U.S. beat Canada 6-3 in the final to win gold last year in Brampton, Ont.

Canada plays its first game Thursday against Finland.

SWEDEN 3 DENMARK 1

Lina Ljungblom scored the winning goal as Sweden opened with a win over Denmark.

Ljungblom's goal came late in the second period with Sweden on a power play. Sofie Lundin's shot pass found an unmarked Ljungblom, whose shot beat Danish goaltender Emma-Sofie Nordstrom.

Lundin also set up Josefin Bouveng's insurance goal in the third period.

Sweden's Felizia Wikner-Zienkiewicz opened the scoring around the midway point of the second period.

Nicoline Jensen scored for Denmark with eight and a half minutes remaining.

Swedish goaltender Emma Soderberg faced just five shots.

Nordstrom made 36 saves for Denmark.

CZECHIA 4 FINLAND 0

Adela Sapovalivova, Klara Hymlarova and Natalie Mlynkova each had a goal and an assist to lead Czechia to a convincing win over Finland.

Sapovalivova scored the winner 12:46 into the second period when she pounced on a rebound and put a backhand shot past Finnish goaltender Sanni Ahola.

Tereza Plosova also scored for Czechia.

Klara Peslarova made 21 saves to earn the shutout for Czechia, which won the bronze medal at the last two tournaments.

Ahola stopped 29 shots.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2024.