I want to start this article off by saying congratulations to the 2026 US Women’s Hockey Team. What they have accomplished during their historic run is truly unmatched in the sport’s history, and I hope the Women’s game will continue to grow. The Women of USA Hockey are elite athletes, and are now cemented as the best in the world. I will not be addressing the controversy between the USA Men’s team in this piece.
Now… with that out of the way
HISTORIC PERFORMANCES
The United States Women’s hockey team recently competed for and won the Gold Medal at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, doing so in dramatic fashion. And just to give a little taste of how crazy it truly was, Goalkeeper Aerin Frankel of the PWHL’s Boston Fleet, standing at only 5’5”, allowed just 2 goals in the seven games played. Thus, accumulating a 98.4% save percentage. This is simply unmatched in any league, or any Olympic team for that matter, with no other female Olympic Goalies even cracking 92.5%.
Aerin Frankel wasn’t done there; she had a GAA (Goals against average) of 0.28. That means, on average, she gave up a goal in only 28% of the games she played. She had 5 shutouts in 7 games, only one less than League Leader Ilya Sorokin of the NHL’s New York Islanders has in 37 games so far this season. This is all while Frankel is playing the best competition in the world (Canada, Switzerland, Finland), and Sorokin is shutting out some of the metrically worst teams in the NHL (Rangers – Nov. 8, 2025, Devils – Jan. 6, and Flyers – Jan. 26). Frankel’s contributions to the team are absolutely unmatched, and it’s hard to see them winning it all without her.
They outscored opponents 33-2 through their seven games, including a dominant 5-0 win in the group stages v. Team Canada, widely renowned as the most prestigious team in the world. Just to put that into perspective a little bit, the top team in the PWHL, the best Women’s hockey league in the world, the Boston Fleet (the best team) has a goals for v. goals against at 37-25. Through more than DOUBLE the number of games the Olympic team played.
One more player to highlight is Captain Hilary Knight. Knight, a talented Forward and well-decorated leader, put up six points in the 2026 Olympics to earn her second Gold Medal. With those six points, she surpasses Jenny Potter in most career points, forever cementing her legacy in US hockey. Knight also leads all-time career goals with 15.
WRITER’S NOTE:
I was very disappointed with how difficult it was to find some of the more advanced metrics for not only women’s Olympic hockey but for women’s hockey in general. There are many platforms with advanced analytics for the men’s game that are widely accessible (hockeyreference.com, NHL.com). But my analysis was halted in some ways by the scarcity of analytics for the women’s game, mainly historically. I would’ve loved to draw more historical comparisons, but the databases were simply missing. I hope that in the future, as the game continues to grow, this issue will no longer be, and the statistics will be more readily available.
