It might seem counterintuitive at first. Marie-Philip Poulin, Laura Stacey, and Abby Roque were on the ice for all three goals the team scored in their 4-3 loss to the New York Sirens on Friday afternoon at the Prudential Center in New Jersey.
In fact, during their current three-game losing streak, they have been on the ice for all five goals the team has scored.
So why may it be time to break them up? Two reasons. One, because of the fact the team has no goals scored when they are off the ice in three games. Two, because that line has also been on the ice for five of the eight goals allowed in the three games.
If we know this, the other teams know this. That means that they are attacking the top line. Not only by playing their top defensive players, but also their top offensive players. The fact that the Victoire are relying on the line for so much offence, the top line are aware of that too, and may be pushing a bit too much on that side of the game.
A perfect example was the 4-2 goal on Friday. The Victoire were pushing while down by a goal, and were dominating play. The shots at the time were 8-1 in the third period, and New York had a three-on-two rush led by reigning PWHL rookie of the year Sarah Fillier. She found the open player at the left circle and Paetyn Levis fired the one-timer by Montreal goaltender Sandra Abstreiter.
They cannot be a one-line team and expect better results. The other teams and coaches are too good to get away with that.
The team didn’t play badly, as evidenced by their 45-21 shot advantage, which was 20-3 in the third period. They just need a little more balance.
”I think in order to get that amount of shots, you’re doing some things right on the ice,” Cheverie said. “[New York goaltender Kayle] Osborne is obviously a great goaltender, and we couldn’t seem to get one by her. It seems like every game there’s a couple of posts, a couple of empty nets, a couple of pucks that just trickle by.”
The return of Jade Downie-Landry helps, as she is a bonafide PWHL centre, but will not necessarily play a role to drive play offensively. Her and newly-named US Olympian Hayley Scamurra will be tasked with defensive roles.
”It’s been a long seven games without playing, but I was happy to be back, especially with the group that we have,” Downie-Landry said. “I see a lot of potential with this team and we’re going in the right direction. We just haven’t been getting the results that we wanted. So we’ve got to tweak some things.”
Rookie Natálie Mlýnková has three goals, and scored one on Friday. Shiann Darkangelo and Maureen Murphy have been creating some chances, but the finish isn’t where it needs to be from a second offensive line.
Murphy, especially, should have much more than her stat line of no points has to show for it. Her 25 shots this season are third in the PWHL among players with no goals.
One solution might be to move Abby Roque back to centre of the second line. I would put her with Laura Stacey, to keep some of the chemistry that already exists. Then, I would put Mlýnková on Poulin’s wing. When Lina Ljungblom returns from LTIR, she can slot in there as well but I would try Murphy as the third person on that line.
With Roque and Stacey, I wouldn’t mind seeing someone like Catherine Dubois or Dara Greig in that spot. Then you can have Darkangelo in a veteran shutdown trio with Downie-Landry and Scamurra. The fourth line would then be some combination of Alexandra Labelle, Kaitlin Willoughby, Skylar Irving plus Murphy or Ljungblom and whichever of Dubois or Greig are not on that line when the team is at full strength.
Now there’s no guarantee that it will work, and there a lot of different combinations I think could work, but I think it would provide a different look and challenge opponents on having to choose how to deploy their top defensive and offensive players. Right now I think the team is just simply too one-dimensional to expect to pull out victories, no matter how many shots they get on net.
The team is doing everything but putting enough pucks past goaltenders, and sometimes rearranging different looks and creating different matchups is enough to get the extra goal you need.
Decisions will need to be made
The reason that the lineup is so hard to predict is because there are hard decisions that will need to be made by the Montreal group. One move was made prior to Friday’s game when Downie-Landry was activated from LTIR and Maya Labad was returned to the reserve roster.
When Ljungblom is ready to return after a bout with mono that has kept her out since she arrived back in Montreal, a harder decision will need to be made. A player will need to be released, as the team has three reserves already (Labad, Tamara Giaquinto, and Claire Vekich). If they move an active player to the reserve roster, someone on reserve will need to be released. The other option is simply releasing someone outright from the active roster.
”We see people in certain situations, and that’s a starting point,” said Cheverie prior to Friday’s game. “Then it’s up to the players to show us that, hey, that is the position they’re going to play in, or they surpass that. Or maybe they’re not right for that as well. […] We have a lot of players who are vying for spots and there are hard decisions that have to be made in the coming days or weeks. I’m not looking forward to that, but I look forward to the compete that we have in this locker room for roster spots.”
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