Defenders accounted for both of the USA’s goals in a 2-1 win over Canada on Sunday night at the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s always fun to score a goal,” said Lee Stecklein, who opened the scoring midway through the first period on a floater from the point that beat a screened Ann-Renée Desbiens.
It was Stecklein’s second goal of the tournament after also scoring in the team’s opening 7-1 win over Finland.
“And watching Megan Keller go through and get that shot off was incredible,” Stecklein said about the 2-0 goal midway through the second period. “She’s awesome always but tonight I thought she was really on top of it.”
Stecklein, 30, is playing in her ninth World Championship but she didn’t play last year. She already has six gold medals and is hungry for a seventh. The Minnesota native did play last season in the PWHL’s inaugural season and won a Walter Cup with Minnesota, but obviously, she’d missed this level of international hockey.
“It’s really fun,” she smiled. “Just to be back here, I’m really enjoying every minute of it. Getting to play against Canada again, I didn’t know if I’d get to do that, so to be here, I was just really excited all day because you just don’t get games like this … there’s nothing like it.”
Asked why she didn’t play for the USA last year, she answered, “I wasn’t sure what the PWHL would look like and what I wanted for myself and my future, so I just took the year to see how it was and I still love playing hockey.
“I didn’t want to be done and I was lucky enough that they wanted to take me back.”
Abbey Murphy After 2-Goal Game Vs Czechia: ‘We’re Here For One Thing’
Abbey Murphy from the University of Minnesota is the consensus
first-overall pick in the 2025 PWHL draft and she showed why against
tournament host Czechia on Friday night. Before a sell-out crowd of
5,859 at Budvar Arena, Murphy scored the USA’s first two goals in a
4-0 win.
With the win, the USA secures first place in Group A and the top seed heading into the quarterfinals, even though both teams still have a game to play.
While these two rivals are usually scheduled to face each other on the last day of the group stage, this time they each have a game left to play. For Canada, it’s a quick turnaround to play the host Czechs on Monday, while the USA takes on Switzerland on Tuesday night.
After the tournament, Stecklein, who has played all of her collegiate and professional career in her home state, returns to finish the season with the Frost where she has six assists – but no goals – in 27 PWHL games.
