Hilary Knight's OT winner seals comeback as U.S. tops Canada in Rivalry Series
Both sides to play again on Tuesday in Ottawa
The Canadian women's hockey team squandered a two-goal lead in the third period and the United States came back to win 3-2 in overtime in the Rivalry Series on Sunday.
American Hilary Knight scored the winner 54 seconds into overtime after netting the third-period equalizer.
Hayley Scamurra began the rally for the U.S. with a goal early in the third period.
"We looked sort of disconnected most of the game," said Team Canada coach Troy Ryan. "We weren't able to execute on some breakouts, our neutral zone play wasn't as good as it has been recently, and we just have to find ways to finish on some of those opportunities.
"I said to the group afterwards, [I think] the positive side we can take out of it is we were still in a position to win that game, but ultimately we got what we deserved and we didn't play as well as we should have."
Marie-Philip Poulin, on the power play, and Sarah Fillier scored for the Canadians in the second period.
U.S. goaltender Nicole Hensley made 18 saves. Canada's Emerance Maschmeyer stopped 21 pucks in defeat.
The teams are using the series both as preparation for February's Winter Olympics and for evaluation to determine their 23-player rosters for Beijing.
Game 4 of the series goes Tuesday in Ottawa. The Rivalry Series then shifts to the U.S. with games Dec. 15 and Dec. 17 in St. Louis and Dec. 20 in St. Paul, Minn.
Canada still has a 2-1 edge in the series after winning the first two games last month in the U.S. — 3-2 in Hartford, Conn., and 3-1 in Allentown, Penn.
'Keep moving forward'
"It's never easy losing to the Americans, but we get to look ahead to playing them in two days," said Poulin. "Obviously, it was not the start we wanted, we were a little bit slow and disconnected at times. We have to figure that out in the next couple of days and keep moving forward."
On Sunday Scamurra buried a puck 2:44 into the third period to cut Canada's lead to one, and Knight tied the game 1:22 later on a feed from Kendall Coyne Schofield.
Canada led 1-0 through Poulin's power-play marker 3:11 into the second with Scamurra in the box for cross-checking.
Fillier doubled the lead at the five-minute mark from Poulin and Micah Zandee-Hart. Fillier of Georgetown, Ont., leads Canada in scoring with four goals.
"I thought we showed a great degree of resilience," said U.S. coach Joel Johnson. "I don't think we changed our style of play between the first, second and third and it was impressive that we stayed after it.
"Usually, you start to panic a little bit and try to play out of character and I was excited to see us continue to play the same way and find a way to put the puck in the net."
