A normally routine practice to start the work week was anything but for the Toronto Sceptres on Monday.
Back on the ice with the team for the first time all season were LTIR (long-term injured reserve) players Natalie Spooner and Megan Carter.
Spooner, of course, is the reigning league MVP and leading scorer from a year ago, whose season ended abruptly midway through Toronto’s failed playoff run. She tore her ACL when she fell awkwardly into the boards right in front of her own bench.
Carter is a two-time Hockey East defender of the year at Northeastern and Toronto’s second round pick (12th overall) from the draft this past June.
She has been rehabbing an unspecified lower-body injury with Spooner since the season began.
Until yesterday, the team had remained tight-lipped about a possible return to full practice and eventually play, but a meeting between management and team doctors on Saturday resulted in the go-ahead to return to full practice.
Normally such a return begins with the player wearing an alternate-colour jersey which acts as a signal to teammates to avoid the physical part of the game, but those were deemed unnecessary. Both were full participants in the practice, including being on the receiving end of hits throughout the Sceptres’ always-physical practice.
Head coach Troy Ryan was thrilled to have two very important pieces back in the fold but cautioned both have more to do before they get back to game action.
“I think they have two return-to-ice sessions to play while we’re away so they’ll stay (while the team heads to Boston) and continue in those but to me, I mean obviously I get excited, but that’s a huge step just getting them (back on the ice with us.)”
It’s not like the pair have been kept away from prying eyes as they have taken the ice with a member of Ryan’s coaching staff after the team practice almost daily to get in their own on-ice workouts.
But their absence from the team has been noticed, particularly where Spooner is concerned.
“It was so exciting,” an elated Renata Fast said of the duo’s return to practice. “It felt like Christmas morning for everyone, seeing them back. They have been grinding for months now, just the two of them on the ice. It’s crazy.”
Fans have yet to get to know Carter, who is a physical defender with a big shot and some offence to her game. Fast said it did not go unnoticed Monday when Carter had at least four blocks in the practice.
As for Spooner, on the final rush of the practice she split the defence and put one in the back of the net in typical Spooner fashion, which emptied the bench as her teammates celebrated her return
Or as Fast put it, “Spooner was back to her scoring self.”
But Spooner’s return is about more than just the number of goals she is going to score. Her absence was felt off the ice as well within the team.
“Last year’s group was pretty loud anyways. Just full of energy,” Ryan said. “This group has a lot of energy but it’s not necessarily as loud. They are relatively reserved and even quiet at times. Someone like Spooner … I mean it’s tough to be quiet around Spooner. She brings just such a good energy.”
Fast noticed it too.
“She’s such a loud person, brings so much energy to the locker room and we’ve missed that,” Fast said before bringing the rookie’s return back into it as well.
“It’s exciting to see them both back,” she said. “They are going to add a ton.”
Ryan couldn’t be happier with the way the team has handled the absence of a key part of their first-year success, to say nothing of a player who is going to slot into their top 6 defenders. He thinks it sets them up very well for a strong rest of the season.
“A team often, as they are working through losing a top-end player, they end up better but not until the other side,” Ryan said, quoting some studies he has read up on in other sports as well as hockey. “A lot of people (believe) the team is better because that player came back when in reality that team is better because of what they have done together in the absence of that player. I think with this group you can see that now.”