Red-hot Heise leads US to gold-medal game at IIHF Women's World Championships
Sep. 3—HERNING, Denmark — Taylor Heise's performance in her first-ever tournament with a U.S. senior national team has to make one wonder: Is anyone at USA Hockey kicking themselves for leaving her off the U.S. Olympic team that won a silver medal in February's Games?
Regardless, Heise has proved over the past two weeks that she will be a fixture on top U.S. international teams for years to come.
Saturday, she recorded her second five-point game of the 2022 IIHF Women's World Championships, scoring twice and recording three assists as the U.S. dominated its semifinal game against Czechia, winning 10-1.
"I think we're doing all the little things right," Heise told USAHockey.com after Saturday's victory. "Sometimes you can get away from that when you're playing in games like this. ... I think we have such skilled players that it's so easy to make those small plays that, we have players who are going to put the puck in the back of the net.
"Our team is just making those things into habits. When you can make the best, the small decisions a habit, that's when things go your way."
The Americans (6-0 in the tournament) will play for a gold medal on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. CDT (NHL Network) against rival Canada (5-1), which routed Switzerland 8-1 in the other semifinal on Saturday. The U.S. topped Canada 5-2 in their pool-play matchup on Aug. 30, overcoming a 2-0 deficit after the first period.
Going into Sunday's gold-medal game, Heise has 18 points (7 goals, 11 assists) in six games at the championships, the second-most points by a player in a single Women's World Championships. She trails only fellow American Cindy Curley, who recorded 23 points in a single tournament.
Heise passed a group of five players — including American legends Cammi Granato, Monique Lamoureux and Heise's current U.S. teammate Hilary Knight — who all had 14 points in a tournament. Heise's linemate and former University of Minnesota star Amanda Kessel has also surpassed that group, as she has 16 points in this tournament (6 goals, 10 assists).
Heise opened the scoring Saturday against Czechia, scoring her sixth goal of the tournament 7:53 into the game, to give the U.S. the lead for good. She assisted on goals by Kessel and Knight in the first, giving Team USA a commanding 6-0 lead after 20 minutes.
Heise assisted on another goal by Kessel in the second, then scored her second of the game just more than 12 minutes into the third, to cap the scoring.
Heise hopes to help the U.S. to a gold medal for a fourth time in her international career — the first time on the biggest stage. She led Team USA to gold medals at the IIHF U18 Women's World Championships in 2016, 2017 and 2018. She was a team captain in 2018, when she recorded eight points and was named the tournament's best forward and MVP.
"We're so excited, we're so excited to come in (Sunday) and play our best," Heise said. "We have put in the time, we have put in the work that we are so ready for (Sunday), but we were still very focused on today. Today was about doing the right things, doing the little things, getting pucks on net, not always taking the easy plays, but making the hard ones. It was about doing the things that make us better and are going to make us better (Sunday)."
Heise — the 2018 Minnesota Miss Hockey award winner while starring for Red Wing High School — is heading toward a possible MVP in her first appearance with the U.S. senior National Team, too, having recorded at least a point in all six games at this year's World Championships.
The U.S. has won the gold medal in five of the past six and eight of the past 10 World Championships, and has reached the gold-medal game in all 21 IIHF Women's World Championships held. That includes a year ago, when the Americans fell to Canada at the tournament played in Calgary.
