Let’s just put it right out in the open: The Sceptres were both owed and deserved this one.
A team that has been snakebit, let alone the individuals within the team having their own hard luck runs, needed some payback and a little good will for what they have been through these past few weeks, and they got a little of everything in Saturday’s 4-2 win over the visiting New York Sirens.
The Sirens of course were on the receiving end of some rather fortuitous puck luck a couple of weeks ago when they were gift-wrapped a 1-0 overtime win on a goal that was clearly offside.
The league though does not allow challenges to an offside goal so the result stuck.
This was the first opportunity for Toronto to get a little revenge and they did.
Here are our takeaways from the game:
MILLER IS MONEY
Hannah Miller — we my have said this before but it bears repeating — was the steal of the inaugural PWHL draft.
Selected in the 13th round, the 74th overall pick, Miller has provided the kind of scoring both last year and this season that Toronto just wouldn’t be the same without.
With her two goals yesterday, that second one stripping a normally fail-safe defender in Ella Shelton at the Sirens blue line and then spying an opening between the pads and rifling it home was a thing of pure beauty — Miller is now the leading goal scorer in the PWHL with six.
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“She plays the game the right way,” Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan said. “She is responsible defensively. She scores a lot of goals either on the power play or in transition. I have been very happy with her. One thing that has been really cool with her this year is she has played right wing, left wing and centre, and seems to not really miss a beat wherever you put her. She deserves a lot of credit.”
In the absence of Natalie Spooner, this Toronto team has struggled to score. Miller, not by herself but certainly the biggest contributor, has helped offset the loss of last year’s MVP as she comes back from a torn ACL.
Credit the Sceptres for not just recognizing this talent initially to draft her but for extending her in the off-season to make sure she was back.
Miller could have easily found a new home in the off-season, but the Sceptres made it worth her while to return and she’s already more than repaid them for that decision.
PERSEVERENCE PERSONIFIED
A lot of Toronto’s early portion of the schedule has been about persevering and in some cases overcoming some bad luck. Sarah Nurse has certainly felt that even coming into yesterday’s game even with three goals already under her belt.
The issue has been that when she has had opportunities of late — and there have been a lot of them — they have been the kind you almost count before they’re actually in only to see something take the chance away.
Nurse was well aware of just how many she had before her game-winning goal yesterday.
In fact, twice in this game alone before she found the back of the net in the third period, Nurse herself was almost celebrating a goal only to head off to the bench with nothing to show for it.
In the first instance, an open net with the puck on her stick stayed out when she hit iron. The second time, early in the third period a perfect cross ice feed from Daryl Watts allowed Nurse to one-time a shot toward the New York net only to have Sirens goalkeeper Corinne Schroeder anticipate the play and slide over in plenty of time to take what looked like a sure goal away.
“I feel like it was a long time coming,” Nurse said of her game-winner Saturday afternoon. “A couple of posts and missed opportunities so definitely frustrating but I had a lot of support from the girls, especially on the bench today. It was huge. A really big power-play goal that was good for momentum with our power-play group.”
Nurse finished up with a game-high seven shots in the game.
THE UNSUNG HEROES
Goal scorers often rightly get the credit for being the difference between a winning day and a losing one, but rarely is it only their success that led to the victory.
In Saturday’s matinee against the Sirens, the line of Blayre Turnbull between Emma Maltais and Jesse Compher were matched up against New York’s top trio of Alex Carpenter, Sarah Fillier and Paetyn Levis.
Normally, Carpenter and Fillier can fill a highlight reel by themselves but that wasn’t the case on Saturday.
Yes, they were on the ice for a power-play goal assisting on Ella Shelton’s power-play marker, but five aside, Toronto’s shutdown trio of Turnbull, Maltais and Compher held them in check.
Between them, Fillier and Carpenter had a total of three shots but for the game were a combined minus-4 due in large part to the fine checking from Turnbull and company.
“That was a matchup they were obviously trying to get on us,” Sirens head coach Greg Fargo said. “I thought the Carpenter line — I thought it was back and forth a little bit. They probably didn’t get the number of looks that they would have liked to over the course of the night, but Blayre and her linemates play a heavy game and they made it hard for that group to get out of our end at times so credit to them. They did a nice job.”
QUICK HITS
Megan Carter in her first PWHL game for Toronto looked right at home in her debut. True to form she was a strong presence clearing the front her own net and showed a little of the heavy shot she was known for in college. She very much looks like a prototypical Troy Ryan player with her penchant for seeking out the physical play and winning those individual battles … Kali Flanagan had a goal and an assist in the game and has now put together her two best games of the year including her performance in that loss in Boston earlier in the week.