Photo Credit : PWHL
PWHL Montreal fans all had the same question before the line-up was announced: would team captain Marie-Philip Poulin return from injury, or would she miss a third game in a row? The answer came a little over an hour before the puck drop, and it wasn’t the one they all had been waiting for. Once again, coach Kori Cheverie would have to make do without the heart and soul of Montreal.
After losing the last three games and acquiring a new defenseman via trade, Cheverie decided to make changes to the defense pairings. Erin Ambrose was paired with Kati Tabin, Mariah Keopple moved down to the second pairing alongside newcomer Amanda Boulier, Catherine Daoust and Madison Bizal formed the third pair. Brigitte Laganière was, once again, used as the seventh defenseman.
Montreal came out of the gate roaring and took an early lead after only two and a half minutes of play when blueliner Kati Tabin scored her first goal of the season. Assists on the goal came from Gabrielle David and Madison Murphy. Less than four minutes later, David sent a perfect pass to Murphy, who was alone in front of Nicole Hensley and showed great poise to deke around the goaltender perfectly, giving Montreal a 2-0 lead. From then on, the tide turned. Slowly but surely, Minnesota took over both puck possession and momentum. By the end of the first frame, shots were 15-5 Minnesota. Yet, Montreal led 2-0, thanks largely to Elaine Chuli, who was her usual unbeatable self.
Just like Montreal had done at the start of the first period, Minnesota struck gold twice in six minutes to tie up the game. Natalie Buchbinder and Lee Stecklein were the home-side scorers. While Chuli could do very little on the first goal, she did get a piece of the puck on the second one. Chances are she would like to have that one back. Minnesota nearly took the lead minutes later when Michela Cava deflected the puck behind Chuli, but the goal was waived off as it was judged the puck had been touched too high. Chuli received another lifeline not long after that when she benefited from a very early whistle from the ref, even though the puck was still loose in front of her. With shots 26-12 for Minnesota after 40 minutes of play, Montreal was lucky to go back to the locker room on level ground with Ken Klee’s team.
In the third period, Montreal finally woke up and played like they should have done in the previous 30 minutes. They even dominated the shots 8-6 in the period. Both Chuli and Hensley were flawless in the third. Hensley even stopped a three-on-zero opportunity for the visitors, and off to overtime they went. Each team had its moments in extra time, but nobody managed to break the deadlock, meaning a shootout would be necessary to settle the debate.
If you recall, the first time Montreal went to a shootout in a home game against Toronto, Cheverie sent out Poulin to take three of Montreal’s first five shots. Today, however, she didn’t have that ace up her sleeve and elected to send out Murphy, Laura Stacey, and Ambrose twice, as she had scored on her first attempt. Montreal didn’t get a fifth shooter since Grace Zumwinkle and Taylor Heise beat Chuli before Zumwinkle did it a second time to seal the deal.
After the game, Montreal forward David was made available to the media. Speaking about her increased role in Poulin’s absence David said, “Yeah, I feel like it was a good time for me to step up offensively. I know I can do it, and I feel like I haven’t really shown it this year and just having like the confidence to do it. So, it’s just building off of that. I think my opportunity was there and I took advantage of it in the first period.”
There lies part of the problem for Montreal, they appear unable to compete for a full 60 minutes. In professional sport, you cannot get away with that. It has also been obvious straight from the start of the season that the defense corps wasn’t up to par. General manager Daniele Sauvageau did what she could to fix the problem at the deadline, but it wasn’t enough. Furthermore, to get Boulier, Sauvageau had to sacrifice Tereza Vanisova, and at a time when goals are hard to come by without Poulin, that was a big blow to the attacking depth.
It’s not the first time Montreal has been unable to maintain a lead. It has happened multiple times throughout the season. In the past, Cheverie had put it down to a lack of killer instinct, so to speak. When asked tonight if Montreal still lacked that killer instinct, the Cheverie replied, “No, I liked the killer instinct at the start, and then I didn’t like our response.”
Say what you will about the Montreal bench boss, but she will never throw her players under the bus.
Cheverie then explained how Montreal was able to come back into the game in its later stages. “We stuck to the game plan; you know we tend to get away from it when we get up by a couple of goals. So, I just liked that we stuck to the game plan and followed it to a T in the third period, and OT. We put ourselves in a good spot to win the game, but obviously, came up short heading to the shootout,” said Cheverie
With this 3-2 shootout loss, Montreal has now lost its last four games. One has to admit that without Poulin this team is not good enough. Your whole system cannot revolve around a single player, and never has there been better proof than those last three games without the captain.
This is hardly the note on which Montreal wanted to head into the international break, but they’ll now have over three weeks to regroup and shake it off. If they want to see the silver lining, the break won’t cost them any momentum built up by a winning steak.
Montreal’s next game is scheduled for April 19th. Although, there are talks of moving it to April 18th in order to avoid playing a back-to-back with the Duel at the top in which they’ll face Toronto at the Bell Centre on April 20th. Until then, enjoy the World Championships.
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