The test of the Toronto Sceptres patience continues.
Another game. Another huge edge in time of possession and still another loss.
Yes, the Sceptres gain a point on the strength of getting the game to overtime but the 1-0 OT loss just extends what has to be a growing level of frustration within that Toronto locker room that is denied once again.
We can only imagine the reactions in that Toronto locker room once the players see the replays of the overtime winner which clearly show Jesse Eldridge, who was credited with the gam-winning goal, two full feet into the Toronto zone before the puck enters the zone.
Eldridge was well ahead of the play and had to wait for the stretch pass from her own zone to catch up to her. She easily has both feet past the Toronto blue line before the puck enters that zone. How the play was not ruled an offside initially on the ice is a real head scratcher.
The hockey gods are clearly not smiling on the Sceptres these days.
Toronto outshot the Sirens 28-20 in the game and 25-10 over the final two periods and the overtime but suffered its seventh loss in past eight games and second overtime loss in the past four losses.
Corinne Schroeder was a wall in the New York net earning her second shutout in consecutive starts, the only two shutouts in the league this season. She was an easy pick as the games’ first star.
Eldridge, offside or not, made a fine hockey move once she picked up the puck off the side boards roofing one over Toronto goaltender Kristen Campbell for the tainted game winner.
Campbell, like Schroeder a product of goalie hockey hotbed Manitoba, deserved better.
Coming off a 4-2 loss against Montreal in that Takeover Game in Vancouver, Campbell looked poised to get back in the win column.
She stopped everything thrown at her until that controversial game winner.
It was all New York in the first period and all Toronto in the second though neither team was able to find the back of the net.
The Sirens had Toronto hemmed in their own end for the majority of the first outshooting the visitors 10-3 as Campbell was forced to be at her best to keep New York off the scoresheet.
But from that point on the tables turned with Toronto owning the offensive zone time through the final two periods as Schroeder was forced to make stop after stop as the Sceptres turned up the pressure.
Toronto came into this one having lost six of its past seven. Not reflected in that string was the fact that Toronto owned the majority of the play in each of its past four games, three of those losses.
Once again Toronto backed their way into a game getting roundly outplayed in that first period but rebounded nicely after that … at least until a seemingly off-side goal was allowed to stand and decide the game.
We suspect the league is going to be hearing about this one for a long time.