The test of the Toronto Sceptres’ patience continues.
Another game. Another huge edge in time of possession and still another loss.
Yes, the Sceptres gained a point in the PWHL standings on the strength of getting the game to overtime but the 1-0 overtime loss to the New York Sirens at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., extends what has to be a growing level of frustration within the Toronto locker room.
We can only imagine the reactions in that Toronto locker room once the players see the replays of the overtime winner which clearly show Sirens’ Jesse Eldridge, who was credited with the game-winning goal, two full feet behind the Toronto blue line before the puck enters the zone.
Eldridge was well ahead of the play and had to wait for a stretch pass from her own zone to catch up to her. She easily had both feet past the Toronto blue line before the puck entered that zone. How the play was not ruled an offside initially on the ice is a real head-scratcher. We suspect the league is going to be hearing about this one for a long time.
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 overtime but suffered its seventh loss in the past eight games, two of the past four coming in overtime.
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 game’s 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 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 its 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 with the Sceptres turning up the pressure.
Once again Toronto backed its way into a game after getting roundly outplayed in that first period, but rebounded nicely after that .