Team Canada could not have gotten off to a better start at the 2019 IIHF Women's World Championship on Thursday.
Canada blanked Switzerland 6-0 in its first matchup of the tournament. The win came without Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin, who missed the entire CWHL postseason with a lower-body injury from which she is still recovering. Poulin dressed for Thursday's game but did not play.
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Forward Loren Gabel said Poulin was still able to make an impact from the bench.
"She's a huge role model, a great captain," Gabel said. "She's just really supportive both on and off the ice. She has a lot of good encouragement, supportive, positive words. Definitely good to have her on the bench for this game."
The team never came close to needing Poulin on the ice, though, as the Swiss were overmatched from the first puck drop. Canada out-shot its opponent 53-6, including 17-0 in the third period.
An impressive 10 minutes into her #WomensWorlds debut, @lgabel9 scores her first goal! 🙌
— Team Canada Women (@HC_Women) April 4, 2019
pic.twitter.com/DtZDneodlK
Emily Clark scored two of Canada's four third-period goals to lead the way on the stat sheet, but the game was over long before that. Canada took the lead nine minutes and eight seconds into the first period with a goal off the stick of Gabel, who was playing in her first World Championship game.
Natalie Spooner added to the lead just 16 seconds later, and it was smooth sailing for the Canadians from that point.
"We're obviously hoping to improve throughout the tournament," Spooner said. "I thought we did some good things, but also have some things to improve on. Obviously we got some shots and got some goals, but we did give them a few chances that we probably shouldn't have. But I thought for our first game, we're going to keep building off that."
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Canada returns to action April 6 against the United States in a rematch of the 2018 Olympic gold medal game, which the U.S. won 3-2 in a shootout.