Canada Needs Marie-Philip Poulin To Bail Them Out One More Time

Two conflicting thoughts from Canada’s Olympic semifinal win over Switzerland on Monday: There is no shame in Marie-Philip Poulin being the best player on your team; there is some shame in needing a one-legged 34-year-old in order to score a single goal.

Team Canada is used to being led by their "Captain Clutch," and in most international tournaments, that says flattering things about Poulin, the greatest player in the history of her sport. In Milan, though, it seems to say more unflattering things about the way Team Canada has been playing that Poulin was the team’s only scorer in a 2-1 game. When they face a rolling Team USA in Thursday’s gold-medal game, Canada will probably need a little more.

Poulin left Canada’s preliminary round game against Czechia last Monday after taking a bad hit into the boards. Though she would miss the rest of Canada’s round-robin games (including their shutout loss to Team USA), head coach Troy Ryan told reporters the team was optimistic she would return for the elimination rounds, and she was indeed back in the lineup against Germany in the quarterfinals, where she scored her 18th career goal at the Olympics, tying Hayley Wickenheiser’s record for most career Olympic women’s hockey goals. But she was far from healed: The Canadian broadcast of the Switzerland game showed Poulin being carted to the ice before puck drop—in too much discomfort to walk.