Entering Friday night’s game, no PWHL player played more games than Montreal Victoire forward Kaitlin Willoughby without scoring a goal. Willoughby, who was acquired by Montreal at last year’s trade deadline had played 74 games in her career over the league’s three seasons.
That streak ended in Montreal’s 3-0 win over the Ottawa Charge in front of 17,114 fans at the Canadian Tire Centre as she scored twice. Sandra Abstreiter, who played three games for Ottawa in the league’s inaugural season, made 39 saves for her first career PWHL shutout in her seventh game.
The win extended Montreal’s point streak to 13 games, stretching their PWHL record. They also moved into first place in the PWHL, one point ahead of Boston although the Fleet do have a game in hand.
“It’s not for lack of chances I’ve had throughout the years; but my teammates, my coaching staff, everyone has just continued to believe in me and keep my confidence up,” said Willoughby. “The support I’ve had from my teammates just keeps me going. They’re like – ‘it’s going to come Willow’. And eventually it did, and now the floodgates might be open for me.”
She mentioned that the team has been putting money on the board for her first goal – a pre-game tradition where players put money into a pot for something to happen. Her lack of finish the last few games prompted her to ask them to stop, before Friday where the team fund did end up getting a boost with her scoring.
Willoughby, who had a two-on-one chance earlier in the game, opened the scoring 6:21 into the second period, with the shots 22-10 for Ottawa. Abstreiter earned an assist on the play when her save led to an odd-player rush going the other way.
Less than three minutes later, Montreal doubled the lead when Nicole Gosling entered the zone on the power play, fed it to Laura Stacey, who found Abby Roque driving the net at the far post for the tap in.
Ottawa would continue to get some chances, but Abstreiter and the team defence would not allow anything to cross the goal line.
“It’s something special, obviously, but in general, it’s a team shutout,” said Abstreiter, whose 39 saves in a shutout was second-most in PWHL history. “There were a lot of [my teammates] that came and helped me out in the crease. There were a few dives across and they made a ton of saves too, and there was definitely a lot of blocked shots. They helped me out with every single one of the shots that the other team was attempting. It’s definitely a team victory.”
Willoughby added her second goal into the empty net with 43 seconds remaining.
Montreal will return home to host the Seattle Torrent on Tuesday night.
Standings
| TEAM | GP | GR | RW | OW | SW | OL | RL | PTS | GF | GA | MAX PTS | MAGIC | TRAGIC | #1 | HOME | GOLD | PT % | GF/G | GA/G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTL | 25 | 5 | 14 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 52 | 65 | 33 | 67 | X | – | 16 | 10 | – | 0.693 | 2.60 | 1.32 |
| BOS | 24 | 6 | 13 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 51 | 59 | 36 | 69 | X | – | 17 | 11 | – | 0.708 | 2.46 | 1.50 |
| MIN | 24 | 6 | 11 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 43 | 72 | 53 | 61 | 6 | 28 | 25 | 19 | – | 0.597 | 3.00 | 2.21 |
| TOR | 25 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 34 | 47 | 63 | 49 | 15 | 16 | 34 | 28 | – | 0.453 | 1.88 | 2.52 |
| OTT | 25 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 11 | 33 | 56 | 66 | 48 | 16 | 15 | 35 | 29 | – | 0.440 | 2.24 | 2.64 |
| NY | 24 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 29 | 55 | 67 | 47 | 20 | 14 | 39 | 33 | – | 0.403 | 2.29 | 2.79 |
| VAN | 24 | 6 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 12 | 27 | 44 | 58 | 45 | 22 | 12 | 41 | 35 | – | 0.375 | 1.83 | 2.42 |
| SEA | 23 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 14 | 22 | 45 | 67 | 43 | 27 | 10 | 46 | 40 | – | 0.319 | 1.96 | 2.91 |
The top four teams make the playoffs. The first seed gets to choose which of the third or fourth place teams they want to face in the first round. All series are best-of-five.
Full Highlights
