Despite not icing a full lineup, the ROC team kicked off the 2022 Olympics auspiciously with a 5-2 win over Switzerland at the National Indoor Stadium on Friday. The Swiss fought back twice to tie the score, but just couldn't match the ROC pace.

In this important Group A matchup for quarter-final seeding, forward Polina Bolgareva dazzled with a hat trick in her Olympic debut. Yekaterina Dobrodeyeva and Anna Shibanova also scored their first Olympic goals for the ROC team. Fanuza Kadirova and Alexandra Vafina added two assists apiece.

"It was a really hard game for us because we didn’t have practice a lot of times," Bolgareva said. "I’m really happy. It’s my first Olympics. My teammates did it all for me. They gave me perfect passes."

No women's hockey team from Russia has ever medaled at the Winter Games. In 2018, the Olympic Athletes from Russia peaked at fourth place.

For the second straight game, captain Lara Stalder scored for Switzerland. Star forward Alina Muller, the 2018 Olympic scoring leader, got her eighth Olympic goal of all time.

"We shot ourselves in the foot," Muller said bluntly. "We made them stronger with our own mistakes. We didn’t get the pucks deep. They had good breakaways and capitalized on their chances. [Goalie] Andrea [Braendli] kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win."

The Swiss are winless so far in their quest to emulate their historic 2014 Olympic bronze medal run in Sochi. They couldn't bounce back from their crushing 12-1 loss on Day One to Canada, the defending World Champions. Remarkably, after facing 70 shots in the opener, Braendli got her second consecutive start.

Netminder Maria Sorokina, who helped the Russians win their last Women’s Worlds bronze medal in 2016 and has captured two Russian Women’s Hockey League championships with Agidel Ufa, made her Olympic debut.

The ROC team outshot Switzerland 31-30.

Several ROC players were unavailable due to being in isolation, and the ROC team iced six defenders to Switzerland’s eight. Regardless, from the get-go, coach Yevgeni Bobariko’s players looked faster and sharper.

"At times we even had to use forwards on defence because we were short-benched," Bobariko said.

“We did not allow ourselves to think about anything but victory," said Vafina. "We knew we did not have a perfect preparation [for the tournament], but we gave it everything, every skill, every positive energy.”

Switzerland was snakebitten offensively at the 2021 Women’s Worlds in Calgary. Despite finishing fourth – their second-best result ever at that tournament after 2012’s bronze – coach Colin Muller’s team got a paltry five goals in three games, ahead of only newly promoted Denmark. The Swiss need to be better at both ends of the ice in Beijing, and soon.

The ROC team drew first blood at 5:54. Braendli got caught sliding around her crease as the ROC team stormed the net, and Dobrodeyeva banged in a rebound.

Stalder, the reigning two-time SDHL scoring champ with Brynas IF, knotted the score on the power play with 2:44 left in the first period. She glided into the right faceoff circle and beat a partially screened Sorokina with a high shot.

Just 13 seconds later, the ROC team struck back to regain the lead. Bolgareva fired the puck through blueliner Nicole Vallario and it deflected off her leg, fooling Braendli and trickling in.

Few could have foreseen Bolgareva's offensive prowess here. The 22-year-old Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg forward has a creditable 13 goals in the Russian Women's Hockey League this season. However, when Bolgareva won two bronze medals at her four U18 Women's Worlds, she was limited to one goal in 24 games.

Colin Muller was not happy with the errors his Swiss players made: "They didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves. I’ve never seen so many calls at the beginning of a game. We didn’t have any self-confidence. Some girls are -8, -9 who are normally solid. I’m like, how can you make those mistakes? You tie a game up and then you give up a bad goal for 2-1 for nothing."

Early in the second period, the quickstrike ROC attack remained threatening. Vafina barely failed to corral a bouncing puck on a 3-on-1 rush.

At 6:57, Muller tied it up on a shorthanded rush just nine seconds into an ROC power play. The former Patty Kazmaier Award finalist with Northeastern took a lovely saucer pass from linemate Noemi Rhyner and beat Sorokina in tight.

Just past the midway mark, Shibanova's blast from the blue line put the ROC team back up 3-2. Shibanova, 27, is a longtime assistant captain with Agidel Ufa and a six-time Women's Worlds participant.

"Anna Shibanova’s goal was probably the key moment," said Sorokina. "After that, psychology affected the Swiss. It was hard for them because they allowed the goal. Nothing was coming off for them, but for us it was the other way round. Psychologically, it went in our favor."

The ROC team took a two-goal lead at 17:07. On a Swiss defensive breakdown, Bolgareva swooped in to take a cross-ice pass from Kadirova, fought off the backchecking of five-time Olympian Nicole Bullo, and slid the puck through Braendli's outstretched legs.

At 1:39 of the third period, Bolgareva completed her hat trick on a breakaway, taking Vafina's headman pass and racing in to beat Braendli five-hole. That put Switzerland's comeback hopes out of reach.

"I was just lucky," Bolgareva said. "I’m really happy. I haven’t scored a hat trick very often but I did it before."

Switzerland had a scare when ROC defender Nina Pirogova was penalized for hitting Muller illegally in the head. At the 2021 Women's Worlds, Muller got tangled up with ROC ace Olga Sosina and suffered an ankle injury in Switzerland's second game that forced her to miss the rest of the tournament. Fortunately, the 23-year-old third-time Olympian would return to action.

Near the 11-minute mark, Sorokina looked impressively cool with a right-pad save on a Stalder breakaway to maintain the three-goal gap.

For both sides, the game had undercurrents of revenge. At the 2018 Olympics, the Olympic Athletes from Russia eliminated Switzerland with a 7-2 quarter-final thrashing. At the 2021 Women's Worlds, Laura Zimmermann’s overtime goal climaxed Switzerland’s 3-2 quarter-final comeback over the ROC team.

“Last time we were up 2-0 and we lost in overtime," Vafina said. "It was sad for us and that was in the back of our mind. This time there was no other way. We knew they are strong and hungry, but we wanted revenge, and we got it.”

Right now, Moscow is smiling and Bern is frowning. Both teams next face a huge test in the U.S., the ROC team on Saturday and Switzerland on Sunday.