Knight has hat trick in 8-1 win over Czechs and Canada shuts out Finland at women's hockey worlds

ESBJERG, Denmark (AP) — Hilary Knight scored a hat trick and defending champion United States cruised past the Czech Republic 8-1 at the women’s ice hockey world championship on Wednesday to finish the preliminary stage with a perfect record.Knight buried her own rebound a to make it 2-0 in the opening frame and found a space in between the pads of Czech goaltender Aneta Senkova from the right circle early in the second.She added her third with a short-handed goal in the third period to increase the margin to seven in the Group A game in Esbjerg.The 37-year-old U.S. captain took her tally to six goals in the tournament in Denmark and a total of 73 goals in 91 games at the worlds.Abbey Murphy scored twice, Alex Carpenter and Laila Edwards got a goal and an assist each and Grace Zumwinkle had one goal. Goaltender Aerin Frankel stopped 11 shots.Murphy opened the scoring from the low slot 0:53 into the game and one-timed a slap shot to increase the advantage to 4-0.After that goal, the Cze