Canada beats USA hockey again — at last. Canada defeated the United States 5-3 on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, at the WFCU Centre in Windsor, Ontario, ending an eight-game losing run against its great rival and claiming its first win over the Americans since 2025. The victory came in the first game of a two-game pre-World Championship series, and it was sealed by the youngest players on a revamped Canadian roster: 18-year-old Rosalie Tremblay and 20-year-old Caitlin Kraemer both scored their first goals for Canada's senior national team, and Sarah Fillier broke a 3-3 tie in the third period before Laura Stacey added an empty-net goal.
For the United States, the defeat was a jolt. The Americans arrived in Windsor as Olympic champions, winners of the gold-medal game at the Milan Games and winners of eight straight meetings with Canada across the Olympics, the Rivalry Series and the World Championships. They fell behind 2-0 in the first period, fought back to 3-3 in the third, and then watched Canada find one more goal when the game was there to be won. The rematch comes quickly: the teams meet again on Friday, October 30, in Plymouth, Michigan, before the World Championship begins on November 6 in Denmark.
Canada scored on its first real chance of the night, and never trailed. With American forward Abbey Murphy in the penalty box for roughing just minutes into the game, Chloe Primerano fired a shot into traffic and Daryl Watts, waiting on the back door, buried the rebound past American goaltender Aerin Frankel to make it 1-0. It was Watts' first goal against the United States on the senior international stage, and it set the tone: Canada was faster, more direct and first to loose pucks all over the ice in the opening frame.
The lead doubled later in the first period through a debutant. Nicole Gosling drew pressure toward herself with a clever move before finding Caitlin Kraemer alone in front of the net, and Kraemer, playing her first game for Canada's senior team, directed the puck past Frankel to make it 2-0. Kraemer, 20, was making her debut for the national team, and she described the moment afterwards in terms that captured the occasion. "Such a great honor just to be sitting along a bench and playing with such great players and people," she said. "I still kind of can't believe it. I'm just so grateful to have the opportunity to wear the leaf."
The United States had a chance to change the game in that first period and could not take it. Canadian forward Danielle Serdachny was awarded a penalty shot with 7:29 remaining in the period, but Frankel, at the other end, stopped the attempt to keep the deficit at two goals. American forward Joy Dunne was also sent to the penalty box for cross-checking, and the United States killed off that power play, but Canada went to the dressing room with a deserved 2-0 lead and all of the momentum.
The second period brought the Americans to life. Hilary Knight, the veteran American captain and the most decorated player on either roster, took a pass in the left circle from Kelly Pannek and beat Canadian goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens to make it 2-1, her first goal of the series. For a few minutes, the game looked as though it might follow the familiar script of recent meetings, with the United States slowly imposing itself. Then Canada's youth answered again. Midway through the second period, 18-year-old Rosalie Tremblay, a rookie playing college hockey with Wisconsin, trailed the play and cleaned up a rebound off a Jessie Eldridge shot to restore the two-goal cushion at 3-1. Canada carried that lead into the third period.
The third period was the best hockey of the night. Abbey Murphy opened the scoring in the frame, breaking in down the left wing and ripping a shot past Desbiens to make it 3-2. Minutes later the Americans thought they had tied the game, only for the attempt to be called back for offside. The reprieve lasted only moments: Caroline Harvey came in as the trailing player to finish a rush by Hayley Scamurra and Kelly Pannek, tying the game at 3-3 and setting up a frantic finish. Both teams traded chances, Desbiens made key saves at one end, and then Sarah Fillier broke the deadlock, placing a shot high to the blocker side past Frankel, with Eldridge picking up her second assist of the game. The 4-3 lead held through a late American penalty, and with time running out Laura Stacey scored into the empty net to secure the 5-3 win.
To understand why this result matters, it helps to remember what came before it. The last time these teams met in a game that truly counted, the United States won the Olympic gold-medal game in Milan, beating Canada 2-1 in overtime. Knight equalised with 2:04 remaining in regulation, and Keller scored the sudden-death winner, completing a perfect 7-0 run for the Americans and their first Olympic gold since 2018. Since then, and across the Rivalry Series and World Championships, Canada had lost eight straight to the United States. The last Canadian win over the Americans had come in 2025. Wednesday's result broke that run in emphatic fashion, and it did so with a roster that looks very different from the one that lost in Milan.
Canada is rebuilding around youth. The roster for this series includes seven players appearing at a World Championship for the first time, and the team is being led behind the bench by a new coaching staff, with Sauvageau as general manager succeeding Kingsbury. The most notable absence is captain Marie-Philip Poulin, who underwent surgery on her ACL and meniscus in July and is missing her first major tournament since 2008. Poulin is the heartbeat of Canadian women's hockey, and her absence made the task in Windsor look harder, not easier. That Canada won without her, and won with teenagers scoring, is the story of the night.
The United States, by contrast, arrived with continuity. Its 31-player camp roster included all 23 Olympic gold medallists, among them Caroline Harvey, the Olympic most valuable player, who scored nine points in Milan, won a college title, claimed the Patty Kazmaier Award and was taken first overall in the PWHL Draft by the Vancouver Goldeneyes. Goaltender Aerin Frankel, who stopped the penalty shot in the first period, was again excellent, and the Americans' depth — Knight, Pannek, Scamurra, Murphy, Dunne — is the envy of the women's game. That depth is precisely why a 5-3 Canadian win, built on speed and pressure rather than caution, will be read as a statement rather than a fluke.
The setting added to the occasion. The WFCU Centre in Windsor, Ontario, hosted a sellout-style atmosphere for a rivalry that rarely needs selling, with the game broadcast on NHL Network and streamed on Peacock and Fubo. Tickets for the series started at $68, and Hockey Canada paired the game with a Rise as One Fan Fest, part of a wider push that has seen a record 121,000 girls and women registered in Hockey Canada programmes. The rivalry is the biggest draw in women's hockey, and Wednesday showed why: a two-goal lead, a comeback, a disallowed goal, a late winner and an empty-netter, all in one night.
The headline belongs to the scorers, and the scorers belong to a new generation. Watts, at 26, is an established international, but the goals that defined the night came from players at the start of their senior careers. Kraemer's goal was a lesson in composure: Gosling's move created the space, and Kraemer, alone in front, did not snatch at the chance. Tremblay's goal was a lesson in instinct: trailing the play, reading the rebound off Eldridge's shot, and arriving at exactly the right moment. Neither goal was lucky. Both were the product of the speed and pressure that Canada brought from the opening faceoff, when, as The Hockey News put it, the United States was "no match for Canada's speed and pressure in the opening frame".
Fillier's winner deserves its own place in the story. At 3-3, with the Americans having erased a two-goal deficit and the momentum swinging their way, the game needed a player willing to take the decisive shot. Fillier, set up by Eldridge's second assist of the night, placed her effort high to Frankel's blocker side — a finish that left no room for doubt. It was the kind of goal that decides rivalry games, and it came from a player who has made a habit of scoring them. Stacey's empty-net goal, with the Americans pressing and a late penalty against them, merely confirmed what Fillier had already decided.
There is also a goaltending story that should not be lost. Desbiens, who had to watch the Americans tie the game at 3-3, responded with key saves in the closing minutes to protect the 4-3 lead, while Frankel, at the other end, kept the United States in the game with the penalty-shot stop and a string of saves before Fillier's winner. In a 5-3 game, the goaltenders are easy to overlook. On Wednesday, both were central to why the game stayed close enough to be decided late.
Kraemer's reaction said more about the moment than any scoreline could. "Such a great honor just to be sitting along a bench and playing with such great players and people," the debutant said after scoring in her first senior international. "I still kind of can't believe it. I'm just so grateful to have the opportunity to wear the leaf." For a 20-year-old playing her first game against the Olympic champions, in a rivalry game, in front of a loud Windsor crowd, the words were refreshingly honest — and they captured what the night meant to the newest Canadians.
The wider reaction, from the coverage of the game, centred on the changing of the guard. The Hockey News framed the result as a product of Canada's new-look roster, noting that "the roster was different, the action was different, and ultimately the final score was different". That is the kindest possible summary of a rebuild: different players, different hockey, different result. For the United States, the reaction will be sharper in the dressing room than in public. A team that had won eight straight against its rival, and that led the Olympic final with two minutes to play, does not lose 5-3 without asking hard questions — about its start, about its penalty kill in the first period, and about how it let a 3-1 deficit become a 3-3 tie without turning that momentum into a lead.
Neither team issued a formal statement in the immediate aftermath covered by the reports of the game, and no coach's press-conference quotes were published in the game reports read for this article. That is normal for a midweek exhibition, even one between these rivals. The quotes that matter, for now, are the ones on the ice: Kraemer's delight, the roar that greeted Tremblay's goal, and the silence that followed Fillier's winner. The second game, in Plymouth, will bring the fuller reckoning, from both benches.
This result matters for three reasons, and none of them is the exhibition label attached to it. First, it ends a psychological run. Eight straight defeats to one opponent, including an Olympic final lost in overtime, can harden into a belief — that the other team always finds a way. Canada found a way on Wednesday, and it did so after giving up a two-goal lead, which is the hardest way to break a run. The next time these teams meet with a title on the line, Canada will not carry the same baggage into the game.
Second, it validates a rebuild. Canada's decision to blood young players — Tremblay at 18, Kraemer at 20, seven first-time World Championship players in the wider squad — carried an obvious risk: that inexperience would be exposed by the Olympic champions. Instead, the youngest players scored, the team played with speed and pressure from the first period, and the win came without Poulin, the player around whom Canadian hockey has been built for a decade. That is the kind of night that gives a coaching staff confidence to keep trusting youth when the World Championship begins.
Third, it sets up the World Championship properly. The tournament runs November 6-16 in Herning and Esbjerg, Denmark, and Canada opens against Sweden in a pool that also includes Japan, Denmark and Finland. The United States will arrive in Denmark as Olympic champions and favourites. Canada will arrive as the team that just beat them 5-3. That changes the conversation around the tournament, the ticket sales, the television audiences and the pressure on both teams. A rivalry is only a rivalry when both sides can win. On Wednesday, Canada proved it still can.
The immediate next step is the rematch. Canada and the United States meet again on Friday, October 30, at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan, in game two of the pre-World Championship series. Expect changes: the United States will want a better start after conceding twice in the first period in Windsor, and Canada will want to show that Wednesday was not a one-night performance. Goaltending rotations, line combinations and special-teams adjustments are all likely, and the Americans, playing at home, will expect to level the series.
After Plymouth, both teams turn to final roster decisions. The final United States roster of 25 for the World Championship was expected around October 31, trimming a 31-player camp group that already included every Olympic gold medallist. Canada's final selections will be watched just as closely, particularly whether the young scorers from Windsor — Tremblay and Kraemer — have done enough to lock down World Championship places. Poulin's recovery timeline will also shape Canada's plans, though no return date was confirmed in the coverage of the Windsor game.
Then comes Denmark. The World Championship, November 6-16 in Herning and Esbjerg, is the first major title on offer since the Milan Olympics, and it will be played with the Windsor result fresh in both dressing rooms. Canada opens against Sweden; the United States' path runs through the same group stage toward the medal round. If the two meet again in Denmark — and the history of this rivalry says they will — the game will be played with a new recent history: not eight straight American wins, but a Canadian win, 5-3, in Windsor, with teenagers scoring and Fillier deciding it late.
Canada beat the United States 5-3 at the WFCU Centre in Windsor, Ontario, on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, in game one of a pre-World Championship series.
Daryl Watts opened the scoring on the power play, Caitlin Kraemer made it 2-0, Rosalie Tremblay made it 3-1, Sarah Fillier scored the 4-3 winner in the third period, and Laura Stacey added an empty-net goal to make it 5-3.
The teams meet again on Friday, October 30, 2026, at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan, in game two of the series, before the World Championship begins on November 6 in Denmark.
The United States had won eight straight meetings with Canada across the Olympics, the Rivalry Series and the World Championships, and Canada's previous win over the Americans had come in 2025.
No. Canada's captain missed the game after undergoing surgery on her ACL and meniscus in July 2026, her first major-tournament absence since 2008.
Read more on US News Pulse: USA vs Canada women's hockey: Olympic rematch tonight in Windsor, Thunder beat Suns 125-114 as Mitchell's career-high 30 keeps OKC perfect at 4-0, and Stephen Curry perfect night powers Warriors past Nuggets 134-114 for first win.
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