Victoire's offence stalls in 4-1 loss to Toronto

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TORONTO — After a shootout triumph Tuesday night against the Minnesota Frost, head coach Kori Cheverie had stressed the Montreal Victoire needed a more diversified offence. On Thursday night in Toronto, it was almost completely non-existent.

The Victoire got off to a bad start to a four-game road trip, falling 4-1 to the Toronto Sceptres at Coca-Cola Coliseum.

Marie-Philip Poulin scored with four minutes left in the third period against Kristen Campbell, who faced 26 shots and was looking for her first shutout of the season.

Poulin’s goal was her 13th of the season, leading the Professional Women’s Hockey League. On the play, Laura Stacey got an assist and extended her point streak to five games.

Since a 6-2 victory over the New York Sirens on Feb. 15, the Victoire has been held to nine goals in six games. Of those nine goals, Stacey had four, Poulin and Kati Tabin two each, and the other came from Jennifer Gardiner.

The Victoire power play was fruitless in six attempts while the Sceptres’, by far the best in the PWHL, scored twice in five opportunities.

“I liked the way we developed in the third period, for sure. Special teams need to win their battles, but you put yourself in a bad position when you’re down 3-0 early,” Cheverie said.

The Victoire players, who had won their previous three matches, conceded three goals in a row in the second half, including two in 59 seconds, from Allie Munroe and Maggie Connors.

Less than 10 seconds after this second goal, scored at 8:01, Elaine Chuli was pulled for Ann-Renée Desbiens. She conceded three goals on 15 shots.

“We wanted to wake up the group,” Cheverie said about the goalie change.

“Chu gives us a chance to win every time she’s in net. It’s true that it’s never a good feeling for a goalkeeper. It’s not a good feeling for a group of coaches to have to do that. We should have played better in front of her and given her that chance. We made this decision to try to turn the tide and change the momentum a little bit,” Cheverie explained.

Desbiens was the victim of Natalie Spooner’s second goal of the game when she tipped in a shot from Renata Fast on a 5-on-3 power play at 16:04 of the second period.

Spooner’s two power-play goals Thursday were her first goals of the season in just her sixth game after returning from knee surgery. She injured her left anterior cruciate ligament in last season’s playoffs in May.

“It felt good,” Spooner said of her first goal. “I’m just trying to do the right things, get to the net-front where I’m good. We kind of thought of a play beforehand, and it ended up working out.

“It hit the post at first and I was like, ‘oh man, just my luck,’ and then I was able to get the rebound, luckily.”

The 34-year-old said she’s leaning on her experience of returning from giving birth in December 2022 to avoid frustration while working back into peak condition.

Asked if she was feeling 100 per cent back, Spooner said there’s still room for improvement.

“Definitely back into the swing of the games and everything,” she said. “I think it’s still going to take some more games to just really feel like I’m there with the timing and everything and my habits.”

Besides Spooner, Fast and Daryl Watts fuelled Toronto’s attack with two assists each.

The Sceptres directed 29 pucks toward Chuli and Desbiens.

It was the first win of the season for the Sceptres over the Victoire in five head-to-head matchups this season after going undefeated in five games versus Montreal last season.

Despite this defeat, the Victoire (10-5-1-5, 41 points) holds a six-point lead over the Sceptres (9-2-4-7, 35 points), who have overtaken the Boston Fleet in second place in the standings. The Victoire also have a game in hand over Toronto.

“It’s better to have these moments now than at the end of the season. These are also situations where we can see what kind of character we have, what the pride is in the locker room. “Maybe some players have the opportunity to evolve in different roles and experience different situations,” Cheverie said.

“We fought until the end, trying to score by all means. Even with a man down, we gave the green light to try to score. I think we are a team that wants to fight until the end. Unfortunately, we just conceded too many goals.”

Montreal will try to recover from this failure on Saturday afternoon during its visit to the Fleet (2 p.m., CBC, Radio-Canada).