PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Losses in Olympic gold medal games can make countries do surprising things, especially when those losses happen twice in a row, to the same team, and that team presents the only real competition in a sport where there is Canada and the United States and then everyone else.

So after the United States women’s hockey team endured a soul-crushing overtime loss to Canada at the last Olympics in Sochi, Coach Robb Stauber did not chalk up the past shortcomings to a couple of bad bounces as he prepared the team for its next Olympic campaign.

The Americans had been 55 seconds short of a gold medal in 2014, and only two goals short of one in 2010, and they had beaten Canada to win the past four world championships. Still, Stauber decided to completely rethink the way this team — and most other teams that have laced up skates and grabbed sticks — approaches the game.