TORONTO-MONTREAL RIVALRY BUILDING
WHEN THE TWO PWHL TEAMS SQUARE OFF AGAIN, EXPECT THE TONE TO BE AGGRESSIVE
Sunday’s fourth of five regular-season matchups between PWHL Toronto and PWHL Montreal is unlikely to be the kind of game anyone will deem tame or docile.
A physical game last Friday when Montreal was dominated on the scoreboard and felt they didn’t match the aggressiveness of their hosts has set the tone for a pushback game when the two square off at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
And if Montreal is out to prove they cannot be pushed around, fully expect Toronto to push right back. Toronto is now tough to play against — forging their identity when it helped them climb out of an early season hole and run off nine-straight wins.
Expect, therefore, special teams Sunday afternoon to have a major say in the outcome.
On that front Toronto has an edge. On the penalty-kill side, no team has had the kind of success Toronto has had. They have been short-handed a total of 47 times and only allowed two goals against for a stellar 95.7 per cent success rate. Factor in the two jailbreak goals the team has scored while down a player and you can make the argument that overall, they have been perfect on the kill.
Montreal, on the other hand, has struggled when they are short-handed. Teams have scored a leaguehigh 11 goals against Montreal, though Montreal has also been short-handed a league-high 59 times.
Toronto also has an edge over Montreal in powerplay situations. Both teams have scored five times on the power play, but Montreal has had 13 more power-play opportunities.
PWHL Toronto head coach Troy Ryan admits his team’s 11.1 per cent success rate with the player advantage has to get up to somewhere around 20 per cent before he’s satisfied, but he doesn’t view either scenario in a vacuum. In a game, all Ryan wants for his team is to win the overall special teams battle.
So it isn’t surprising that Ryan huddled with his five primary power-play specialists — Renata Fast, Natalie Spooner, Sarah Nurse, Hannah Miller and Blayre Turnbull — talking things over.
“My conversation with them was for them to go over the goals they have scored this year (on the power play),” Ryan said. “Goals are scored around that blue paint. You have to get pucks there and on power plays you have to be comfortable getting pucks into that tough area and then have numbers there.
“A lot of times people think about what power-play goals look like but the truth is the majority of the time they are not that pretty.”
Most power play goals begin with a good shot on net and someone banging home the rebound. Miller, for instance, has five goals this season, and four of them have been scored in exactly that manner.
Spooner, the league-leader in goals with 12, has most of her success crashing the net.
It’s the willingness to go into those dirty areas as they are referred to in hockey and take the punishment defenders hand out when you get too close to the crease that is going to move Toronto’s power play from a middleof-the-pack group to one that is closer to scoring every five power plays.
It’s the one area of Toronto’s game that has room for significant improvement. It’s going to be pivotal this weekend as Toronto attempts to win its fourth in a row against a powerhouse PWHL Montreal squad.
Sunday’s game takes on a much different look if Montreal forward Marie-philip Poulin isn’t in uniform. Poulin was a scratch in last Sunday’s loss to Ottawa after she was limping at the end of Friday’s game in Toronto.
As much as a Poulin absence would bolster Toronto’s chances, Ryan wishes only consistent health for the game’s best player.
“I hope she is OK,” he said. “I really do, for many reasons, but even just for her as a person, I hope she is OK.”