Five takeaways from the 2025 Women’s U-18’s Group Stage: Scoring down; Canada, USA look strong

One of the top international women’s hockey tournaments is off to a great start, as the rising stars of the game are showing out in the 2025 IIHF Under-18 Women’s World Championship.

While some pre-tournament expectations have come to fruition, there has been plenty of action, with some surprises after the group stage, setting up for what should be an exciting knockout stage.

Here are some notable takeaways from the first week of action in Vantaa, Finland:

USA looks unbeatable

In the nine editions of the Under-18s that have seen the U.S. and Canada play in separate groups, the two superpowers have pretty comfortably won their respective groups.

This year was no different.

In their three games, the United States didn’t allow a single goal. In fact, across their wins over Japan, Sweden and host Finland, the defending gold medalists outshot their opponents 157-32. Granted, 21 came in their 3-0 win over Sweden in their second game. Elizabeth Norton’s team played stout defense but also did an excellent job of maintaining possession, allowing the team’s skill to control the pace of play.

The Americans’ top lines were the key contributors in what was a relatively low-scoring preliminary round for the team. The U.S. scored just 14 goals in the first round, with four players finding the back of the net twice. Their leading scorer is captain Anabella Fanale, who potted two goals and five points, while Christina Scelese posted two goals and four points herself.

Goaltender Morgan Stickney played all three games for the U.S. and came up big when called upon, especially in the rather tight game against the Swedes on Sunday.

The Americans will face Slovakia in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

Canada has a tougher time

Some might see the fact that Canada led the group stage in goals, outscoring their opponents 16-3, and think that’s a good sign.

To an extent, it is. However, the Canadians certainly didn’t have the cleanest three games. Thanks to a couple of defensive lapses against the Slovaks’ top players in the opening game of the tournament, Canada found themselves tied at two heading into the period. Thankfully, they scored four in the third to escape the upset.

While they played better against Switzerland, the Canadians had their hands full in a semifinal rematch with Czechia. The Czechs created a number of quality chances, including a few when they only trailed Canada by two. Once again, the Canadians pulled away late to win 5-0.

Marilou Grenier has certainly grabbed the reins as the starting goaltender. The Minnesota-Duluth commit won both of her starts, making 20 saves against Czechia.

Though she isn’t on the scoring spree as she was last year, Chloe Primerano made history. With two goals and an assist in the group stage, she surpassed USA’s Jincy Roese and Canada’s Brigette Lacquette for the most points by a defender in the tournament’s history with 19 points.

Slovakia has the stars, but not the depth

Everyone was excited to see what Slovakia would bring to the table as the nation continues to slowly improve in the women’s game.

The team certainly made waves with how they played early on against Canada despite getting heavily outshot. Nela Lopušanová and Ema Tothova scored early, giving the team some life even though it ended in a losing effort.

Lopušanová continued to light the lamp, scoring a hat trick against rival Czechia. With four goals and eight points, the 16-year-old leads all skaters with eight points.

Gabriela Lacna also scored thrice in a game, doing so in the group stage finale against Switzerland. Lopušanová, Lacna and Tothova accounted for the team’s seven goals, combining for 16 points. However, only three other players registered points in the opening stage. While the Slovakian women’s program is growing in Europe, there is still work to do to have a complete roster and make the team competitive.

Even with the possibility of the senior national team qualifying for the 2026 Olympics, it will be interesting to see what type of fight they will have against more established countries.

Japan gives teams fits

There was a growing concern about how Japan would perform in its return to the top division. Yet, the country proved it was not to be taken lightly by how it played in their last two games of the group stage.

After falling to Team USA, 6-0, in game one, Japan gave Finland plenty of problems on Sunday, taking a 2-1 lead heading into the third period. Unfortunately, they surrendered the go-ahead goal with just a few minutes to go, leading to a 4-2 loss.

A similar tale occurred in Japan’s third game, this time taking a 3-1 lead against Sweden, leading 4-3 heading into the third.

However, Damkronorna roared back, sending the game to overtime, with Ebba Hesselvall’s overtime winner stealing another Japan.

Nana Akimoto led the Japanese with two goals, while Umeka Odaira posted three points in the group stage.

Despite losing all three games and the potential they could be relegated, Japan’s effort in this tournament shows that the next wave of talent can lead to brighter days for the senior national team.

Shoutout to the goalies

One noticeable stat in the preliminary round was the rather low-scoring games, by this tournament’s standards. Last year, Canada scored 29 goals in the opening round, with the U.S. potting 19. In total, 88 goals were scored in the group stage.

This year, with the North American teams combining for just 30 goals, scoring is down in Vantaa, with just 71 markers registered across the first three days of competition.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying. With the Americans and Canadians pouring on the shots and many games seeing plenty of back-and-forth action, the goaltenders had to step up.

Led by Stickney, six of the eight goaltenders who saw action posted .900 save percentages. That includes Switzerland’s Amaya Iseli, who posted a .919 SV% in three games, stopping 113 of the 123 shots she faced. Along with some solid efforts from Genrier and Sweden’s Maja Helge, Finland’s Kerttu Kula-Halkola has the ability to give the hosts a chance to go back to the semifinals. The Team Kuortane product went 1-1-1 in the preliminary round, posting a .916 SV% and a 2.96 goals-against average.

Quarterfinal Schedule (Thursday, Jan. 9)

Sweden vs. Switzerland (3 a.m. ET)
United States vs. Slovakia (6:30 a.m. ET)
Czechia vs. Finland (10 a.m. ET)
Canada vs. Japan (1:30 p.m. ET)

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