Hilary Knight and Amanda Kessel headline the U.S. women’s national hockey team announced Friday, a 23-woman roster that has the inside track to become the 23-woman Olympic roster.
The national team will live and train together beginning in September in the lead-up to the PyeongChang Winter Games in February. The Olympic team will be named closer to the Winter Games.
The national team was chosen from 42 players who tried out a camp in Florida this week. It includes 12 members of the Sochi Olympic team that took silver, squandering a 2-0 lead with four minutes left and losing 3-2 in overtime to Canada.
Knight, who scored the overtime goal in last month’s world championship final against Canada, is on track to make her third Olympic team.
Kessel, the sister of NHL All-Star Phil Kessel, returned to the national team this season for the first time since the Sochi Olympics. She missed nearly two full years of game action due to post-concussion effects.
Jessie Vetter and Kelli Stack are the most notable players who didn’t make the team. Vetter, the No. 1 U.S. goalie at the last two Olympics, became a mom on Feb. 27 and went about one year between skating before returning ahead of this week’s tryout camp in Florida.
Stack memorably hit the post of an empty Canadian net on a clearing shot in the Sochi Olympic final that would have all but clinched gold.
None of the three goalies chosen have Olympic experience.
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Goalies
Nicole Hensley
Alex Rigsby
Maddie Rooney
Defensemen
Kacey Bellamy -- Olympian (2010, 2014)
Megan Bozek -- Olympian (2014)
Kali Flanagan
Megan Keller
Monique Lamoureux-Morando -- Olympian (2010, 2014)
Gigi Marvin -- Olympian (2010, 2014)
Emily Pfalzer
Lee Stecklein -- Olympian (2014)
Forwards
Hannah Brandt
Dani Cameranesi
Alex Carpenter -- Olympian (2014)
Kendall Coyne -- Olympian (2014)
Brianna Decker -- Olympian (2014)
Meghan Duggan -- Olympian (2010, 2014)
Amanda Kessel -- Olympian (2014)
Hilary Knight -- Olympian (2010, 2014)
Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson -- Olympian (2010, 2014)
Annie Pankowski
Kelly Pannek
Amanda Pelkey