Claire Thompson celebrated her birthday in the best possible way leading her Minnesota Frost to a 4-3 win over the Toronto Sceptres in a shootout.
Thompson had two goals and an assist in regulation and what turned out to be the eventual winner in the shootout as the Toronto native denied the Sceptres a win in what was an evenly matched team between two teams playing excellent hockey right now.
The Sceptres did salvage a point and earned full marks for coming back from deficits three times to force overtime.
Team captain Blayre Turnbull had the best chance of the five-minute overtime as she chipped an Emma Maltais pass towards the net that Minnesota netminder Maddie Rooney just got a piece of to send it over the net.
Raygan Kirk stopped 26 of 29 shots in her second start in a row, but like the rest of the Sceptres had no answer for the red-hot Thompson, a one-time member of the Etobicoke Dolphins whose home rink now also serves as the Sceptres’ practice rink.
With the three-point night Thompson joins teammates Taylor Heise and Kendall Coyne Schofield as the league’s top point getters with 14.
Both team’s power plays were on fire with Toronto getting all three of its regulation goals with the skater advantage and two of Minnesota’s coming on the power play.
Sarah Nurse has not been shy about showing off her hand-eye coordination this season and she was at it again on Tuesday.
Her sixth goal of the season tying her with Coyne Schofield, Alex Carpenter, teammate Hannah Miller and Minnesota’s Micheala Cava for the scoring lead, was as much baseball as it was hockey.
A shot from the top of the circle from Daryl Watts popped up in front off the pads of Rooney directly to Nurse who picked it cleanly out of the air with her stick re-directing it into the back of the Minnesota net.
Nurse was pivotal in Toronto’s second goal of the night as well. Fresh out of the penalty box after a questionable tripping call, Nurse re-joined the play to a Toronto advantage with Kelly Pannek having followed her to the box soon after Nurse’s own minor.
Nurse immediately jumped into the rush leading a trio over the Minnesota line and dropped it for a trailing Jesse Compher.
Compher, who has been on a steady rise since the season began, walked in untouched and beat Rooney high glove side to tie the game.
After Minnesota regained the lead midway through the third, Renata Fast again got Toronto even, taking a nice feed from Compher and one-timing her first goal of the year into the top of the net and behind Rooney.
With the point , Toronto is now two points out of fourth place currently occupied by Ottawa and tied with Boston for fifth although the Fleet have a game in hand on Toronto.
The Sceptres are right back at it on Thursday as they travel to Montreal to take on the Victoire and then wrap things up before a league-wide break with a game at home at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday against the Charge.