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In Hainsight: PWHL Montreal Lost Without Poulin |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
All day on Sunday PWHL Montreal fans kept looking at their social media wishing and hoping to read that Marie-Philip Poulin was all right and that Friday’s apparent injury was just a scare, but no such luck. An hour before the game, the news dropped that Poulin was out with a lower-body injury. In her post-game comments, head coach Kori Cheverie said that she couldn’t give a timeline on Poulin’s return as the situation was evolving daily and even hourly. Seeing Poulin walk into Place Bell with a stiff right leg, she appeared to be wearing a knee brace. Cheverie’s declaration would as the swelling on a knee injury must diminish before the damage is fully assessed. Watch this space for more information as it becomes available.
Take any team’s best player away and the team instantly becomes weaker, think about Boston without Knight, Minnesota without Coyne-Schofield, or case in point, Montreal without Poulin. The only way things could have gotten worse for Montreal, was if their special teams struggled, which they did. In a game where each team gets five minor penalties, that’s fatal.
Ottawa dominated the first frame with 14 shots to Montreal’s 10, but they were unable to beat Ann-Renée Desbiens, until they got a power play in the dying minutes of the period, that is. Brianne Jenner skated close to the net before firing a quick wrister which beat the Montreal goaltender nearside.
Montreal gave a better performance in the second, dominating shots-wise and playing a very physical game that looked a lot like what we’d seen in Toronto on Friday night. They shot themselves in the foot taking three penalties in those 20 minutes and while Ottawa didn’t strike on the power play, it gave Montreal little opportunity to equalize. Midway through the second, Desbiens went behind the net to play the puck but wasn’t quick enough, she fell after contact and froze the puck where she wasn’t allowed to, getting a delay of game penalty.
Now, let me be clear, I’m not saying Desbiens is not a good goaltender, she’s been dubbed best goaltender of the world and is after all the Muraille de Charlevoix, but exiting the crease to play the puck is not her strong suit. Numerous times since the start of the season she’s done it and committed a blunder. When she does that, the team’s confidence looks shaken, and they struggle. You can be a good goaltender without being a Martin Brodeur around the net, think of Patrick Roy for instance, he made some hazardous plays in his days.
If we look at the Montreal goaltenders’ performance so far this season, Elaine Chuli has performed better. It’s impossible to argue against that from a rational standpoint, their respective stats are telling. Chuli’s GAA stands at 1.34 while Desbiens’ is at 2.32. As for the save percentage, Chuli has a whooping .958 while Desbiens has .919. Desbiens’ numbers are not bad by any means, but they are lower than Chuli’s and Kori Cheveri knows it. There’s a reason why she picked Chuli to play against Toronto. Hockey’s a result-based business and we should expect to see more of Chuli in the seven games Montreal has left in the regular season.
Parenthesis over and back to the game, Ottawa doubled its lead when Daryl Watts scored at even strength 13 minutes into the middle frame while Montreal was blanked, once again. That was five periods of hockey without scoring a goal, that’s just not good enough to win games.
Montreal showed more life in the third and finally got a power play goal on a Stacey rocket from the blue line, cutting the visitor’s lead in half but the celebrations in the stands didn’t last long, Ottawa got its two-goal lead back a little over two minutes later when Aneta Tejralova scored her second of the season, once again on the power play with Kristin O’Neil in the sin bin.
Montreal kept battling desperately and Melodie Daoust scored her second of the season when she got her stick on a loose puck in the slot and slid it behind Maschmeyer. With a little less than three minutes to go, the Place Bell was hoping, but Gabbie Hughes’ empty netter confirmed Ottawa’s victory.
On the winners' side, forward Katerina Mrazova had three assists to extend her point streak to six games and was named the first star of the game while Maschmeyer was fantastic in net posting a .944 save percentage on the night. Mrazova now has 13 points in 16 games this season, leading all of her teammates.
Speaking post-game when asked if the team was a bit worn out after three games in five days, Sarah Lefort said: “Definitely it’s a long season, everybody’s got to go through it so like Laura said you just can’t, we know the schedule, we have to be prepared for it and do the little things right”.
Speaking about the power play, Laura Stacey explained:” […] Our focus more as a group is how do we build momentum of hit? If it’s not clicking right now if it’s not going in the back of the net, at least how do we get the next shift better off than when we started? In tight games like this, you need your special teams to win those games and unfortunately, we didn’t do that tonight, so obviously it’s going to be something we’re going to continue to work on, we’re going to keep pushing forward.” About the quality of the goaltending in the league, she added: “Yeah, I mean it’s not an easy sport, the goaltenders in this league are incredible, we need to find a way to take away their eyes, it’s not for a lack of trying, it’s not for a lack of opportunity to be honest with you, I think the shots on net, the scoring chances, we’re creating them, it’s just a matter of finding that next step and finishing games up and putting the puck in the net.”
As for head coach Kori Cheverie, starting her presser in French as always she said: “We must learn from this, that’s all.” The bench boss was disappointed by the special teams, power play, and penalty kill. About the officiating, she added: “Erm..there wasn’t much communication. That to me is tough because that’s something that I value very much as a coach is communicating and it’s just, the relationship tonight was hard, it just wasn’t there. […] That’s what makes people really good at their job is their ability to communicate and their ability to pass along messages, so that wasn’t there tonight, so that was tough.”
This game marked the first time Montreal lost two games in a row and now has a full week to get some rest and regroup for their next game, which will take place in Pittsburgh against Toronto, the only team Montreal has yet to beat. It will be interesting to see if Poulin is able to come back and if the team will elect to sign Melodie Daoust to another 10-day standard player agreement, especially if Poulin is still unable to play.
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