MILAN — Team USA’s inexorable march towards women’s hockey gold took another step Friday night. 

The Americans rolled past Italy in the quarterfinals, dispatching the Italians 6-0 in a match that was never competitive and never in doubt, a lot like their four preliminary games. 

“It’s a special group,” Kendall Coyne Schofield said after scoring her first two goals of the Olympics. “It hasn’t been special overnight. I’ve been on a lot of teams throughout my career, but there is something special about this one.” 

Team USA possessed the puck constantly Friday night. There wasn’t a single line or pair that didn’t dominate. Their retrievals, their battles, their play on the walls and below the hashes were all superlative. They gave up two shots in the first period and two in the second, after which the score was 6-0. Then they gave up two in the third. It was as close to a perfect game as you will ever see. 

Ilia Malinin reminded the world in brutal fashion while this game was going on that there are no guarantees, but two more wins and a gold medal for this team seems about as close as you could get.

Even Canada, the team widely viewed as closest to the United States, fell 5-0 to the Americans in the group stage, albeit with superstar Marie-Phillip Poulin out due to injury. 

Indeed, the Americans may be to these Winter Games what the U.S. women’s basketball team usually is to the Summer Games. 

Team USA’s semifinal match Monday will be against Sweden, barring a Germany upset of Canada later Friday. 

Through five games, Team USA has outscored its opposition 26-1. They haven’t allowed a goal in 271:23, and have four consecutive shutouts. 

“You have to be on your game, always ready to attack the attacker, of course,” coach John Wroblewski said. “But there needs to be a lot of respect for the treachery and how fragile it is between success or not. You can’t take anything for granted.” 

Wroblewski jawed back and forth with an Italian assistant coach after Hannah Bilka was cross-checked while scoring Team USA’s sixth goal of the night, after which Abbey Murphy and Italy’s Franziska Stocker got into a shoving match, each taking coincidental minors. 

Afterward, Wroblewski said he feels the rules around contact in the women’s game are enforced unevenly. 

“They’re not supposed to be able to remove a player from the puck with any type of force except while playing the puck,” he said. “And you just see it time and time again: A team that’s maybe not as deep or skilled or as athletic as some of the players are allowed to hold up and blatantly break the rules. Meanwhile, if those same players played against the opponent the same way, as physical and as determined, they’d be going to the box every single time.” 

On Friday, though, that mini-controversy had zero impact on the game. The Americans were already up 6-0, all but officially in the semifinals. The trio of goals they scored in a four-minute span starting at 1:41 in the second — two from Coyne Schofield and a third from Edwards — ensured that much. 

This was merely about sticking up for each other. 

“When you represent your country, you hold yourself to a higher standard,” Murphy said. “Obviously, I got this kid [Bilka] on my line, so anyone in front of the net that gets cross-checked, I’m not gonna watch it happen. You know that’s me. I’m not gonna let it go.” 

The competitive part of the game, by then, was long over. 

The competitive part of the Olympics has yet to begin.