Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson set an Olympic record for the fastest back-to-back goals by a man or a woman, scoring 6 seconds apart in the second period as the United States shut out the Russians 5-0 on Tuesday night.
Lamoureux-Davidson, who once played for the Gophers and is from Grand Forks, not only topped Canada’s Caroline Oullette, who scored twice in 16 seconds on Feb. 11, 2006, in a 16-0 rout of Italy at Turin, but also the men’s mark held by Carl Goran Oberg of Sweden in 1960 at Squaw Valley.
With the win, the Americans remain undefeated going into their early Olympic showdown with Canada, which is also 2-0.
The Americans won eight of the last 10 world championships, including an overtime win over Canada last spring for their fourth straight title . But they are at the Pyeongchang Games trying to end a 20-year gold medal drought. The last time these teams met in the Olympics, Canada rallied from an 0-2 deficit to win its fourth straight gold in overtime in 2014 in Sochi .
No medal will be on the line Thursday, just positioning for the semifinals. That made tuning up the offense a must for the Americans with Canada routing its first two opponents 9-1 after a 4-1 win over Finland earlier Tuesday.
Kacey Bellamy opened the scoring off a pass from Lamoureux-Davidson in the first. Lamoureux-Davidson added two goals, and Gigi Marvin and Hannah Brandt each had a goal. Marvin is from Warroad, while Brandt is from Vadnais Heights. Both are former Gopher stars. Nicole Hensley, who started the U.S. win over Canada in the 2017 world championship, made 13 saves in her Olympic debut.
The Americans had played the Russians in the Olympics only once before, and they routed them 13-0 in 2010 at Vancouver setting a single-game record for the U.S. in the games.
This time, they played athletes from Russia competing under the Olympic flag after the country was banned from the games for revelations of a massive doping operation. The women’s hockey team is playing without six players from the world’s fourth-ranked team a year ago, though the Russians had a pocket of vocal cheerleaders on hand.
U.S. coach Robb Stauber rotated his goalies, putting Hensley in net after playing Maddie Rooney in a 3-1 opening win over Finland. Stauber once starred for the Gopher men’s team.
Neither team could generate much offense in the opening minutes. Then Lamoureux-Davidson took the puck deep into the left circle, then found Bellamy and she scored on a wrist shot from the top of the right circle, beating Valeria Tarakanova stick-side 8:02 for the 1-0 lead. After getting only seven shots on goal in the first, Lamoureux-Davidson led a breakout in the second for the United States.
Lamoureux-Davidson tapped in the rebound of a shot from her twin sister , Monique Lamoureux-Morando, at 11:46. Off the ensuing faceoff, the puck wound up in the skates of two Russian players and she poked it away to give herself a breakaway. She dipped her right shoulder and feigned a forehand shot before beating Tarakanova with a backhand.
Marvin’s goal off a rebound at 14:38 gave the Americans a 4-0 lead.
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