Toronto looks to continue momentum
Toronto head coach Troy Ryan and a handful of his players have had an eventful season.
The PWHL team started off its first season 1-4 and questions swirled over why the talented roster was struggling. Then Toronto went on an 11-game winning streak to charge into first place before losing to Ottawa on March 23, just before the month-long break for the world women’s hockey championship.
Ryan and seven of his players were part of the Canadian team that beat the United States to win gold in Utica, N.Y. Now it’s back to league business and the final five games before the playoffs.
“We want to pick up where we left off a while ago,” Ryan said. “You’d also like to be in a situation where you don’t have to necessarily grind these five games out, where we can set ourselves up for success.
“If you play well in these games, then you don’t have to shorten your bench as much, you don’t have to overload any one or two players. You want to manage it a little bit so we’re all fresh going into playoffs.”
The seven national team players — goalie Kristen Campbell, defenders Jocelyne Larocque and Renata Fast, and forwards Sarah Nurse, Emma Maltais, Blayre Turnbull and Natalie Spooner — had permission to skip practice Tuesday but a number of them still showed up at the Ford Performance Centre for treatment.
Campbell practised, partly because she didn’t play much during the championship run and wanted to stay sharp before play resumes Thursday in Boston.
“The ones that are on the national team … they know how to manage themselves and set themselves up for success. I don’t anticipate it being a tough transition for them at all,” Ryan said.
The coach said it can be frustrating for the players who weren’t at the world championship, practising without games to play. But it gave them a chance to work on specific areas of their games without the added pressure of producing.
Forward Rebecca Leslie said the hiatus was an opportunity to put in more reps with a smaller group of players. They talked about staying even keel during an entire game, and about building and keeping the momentum.
“We have a really strong team but fine-tuning those little areas of our game is really important,” she said.
Toronto will play three games on the road, including a Saturday visit to Montreal’s Bell Centre, where another attendance record is expected, before closing the season with two home games.