At three consecutive IIHF World Championships she served as Team USA's primary goaltender, winning gold twice and silver once, and became the first U.S. women's goaltender to start five consecutive games at an Olympics or World Championship in 26 years. Then came Milan. At the 2026 Winter Olympics, Frankel became the first goaltender in Olympic women's hockey history to record three shutouts in a single tournament. One of them, a 20-save performance in a 5-0 victory, was the first time Canada had been shut out in 41 Olympic women's hockey games, by any goaltender from any country. When her teammate Megan Keller scored the overtime goal to bring home gold, it was Frankel's wall that had kept the game close enough to reach that moment. That same year she won both the Billie Jean King MVP Award and Goaltender of the Year in the PWHL, sweeping the league's top honors with the Boston Fleet.

What her teammates notice most is that she is nearly impossible to read, so even-keeled and focused that it's difficult to judge when she's happy or excited. Off the ice she runs an Instagram account dedicated entirely to Caesar salad, posting photos and deadpan reviews of versions she finds at restaurants across the country. The account is a perfect expression of who she is: exacting, specific, a little dry, operating with quiet authority in a lane entirely her own. Her overall record in combined Olympics and world play is 14-2 with six shutouts. She is 26 years old. The girl who became a goalie so she wouldn't have to leave the ice has not left it since.