PWHL play-by-play announcer Sam Ekstrom may have said it best: “Poulin! Who Else? Montreal wins!”
Marie-Philip Poulin scored on a spinning backhand shot in overtime as the Montreal Victoire defeated the Minnesota Frost 2-1 at Grand Casino Arena in Minnesota on Wednesday night.
It was somewhat reminiscent of the Bob Cole call stitched into my memory: The Canadiens win the game in overtime, A-GAIN.
The Victoire held the lead late in the third period, but allowed a Kelly Pannek goal with 1:02 remaining to send the game to overtime after Minnesota pulled goaltender Nicole Hensley. Hensley made 24 saves in the loss.
Maureen Murphy scored her first goal of the season on a deflection in front in the second period. Ann-Renée Desbiens made 23 saves and allowed one or fewer goals for the sixth time in 11 starts this season. She leads the league with a .951 save percentage.
Montreal has now won four straight games against the Frost dating back to last season. Their previous meeting this season also ended with a Montreal win in overtime.
An eye-opening performance
Maybe I’ve been too close to really figure this out sooner, but it finally hit me watching the game on TV. The Victoire are playing a playoff style of hockey. Wednesday’s win was their eighth straight one-goal game, tying a PWHL record. They are 4-4 in those games.
When they added players like Hayley Scamurra, Shiann Darkangelo, Jade Downie-Landry, Abby Roque, Maggie Flaherty, and Jessica DiGirolamo, they looked like a team building itself for playoff hockey. In the regular season, they seem to be taking that to heart.
Last season, 10 of the 12 PWHL playoff games were one-goal games, and the two that weren’t were two-goal games. All of Montreal’s seven playoff games have been one-goal games. This team is clearly working on being ready for the games when they matter most. It’s not like they are sitting back in a shell, either. Even with a 1-0 lead, they were tied 8-8 in shots in the third period, including when Minnesota had the goaltender pulled.
It hasn’t always worked, the team is 5-3-0-5 (RW-OW-OL-RL), and as mentioned they have lost four straight games by one goal out of the five they have lost overall. However, there is something to be said for hammering home your style. The Frost entered Wednesday’s game not only as the two-time defending Walter Cup champions, but as the highest scoring team in the league. The Victoire held them to one goal.
“They have goal scorers – they’re leading the league in goals – so it was something important for us recognizing possession moments and where our defensive positioning was going to be when those moments happened,” said head coach Kori Cheverie. “We had a game plan for that, and I thought that we made some adjustments throughout the game and the players responded really well.”
After their last game, a 2-1 loss against New York, Cheverie almost called out her team in a way that was telling.
“I would have loved for our group to have shown the emotion that they showed in the scrum at the end of the game, all the way through, because that is the type of fight, grit, passion, determination, fight, tooth and nail for absolutely everything,” she said. “Nothing is given in this league; you have to earn absolutely every inch of ice. And when we decide to figure that out, we’re going to be a very scary team.”
That sounds like a playoff mentality to me. She mentioned it in the team’s 1-0 win against Vancouver in Quebec City too: It felt like a playoff game where the teams weren’t fighting for three points but fighting for a win in a series.
The hope is that this will benefit the team in the long run, and that they can eventually overcome their playoff failures of the last two years.
They do have to get there first, however. They are currently holding on to the final playoff spot in the league by both points and points percentage.
Highlights
Standings
Montreal has two games left until the Olympic break: Saturday at home against Ottawa, followed by Tuesday at home against Toronto.
