PWHL Boston stuns first-place Toronto in return from international play

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PWHL Boston played like the desperate team that it is.

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PWHL Toronto, on the other hand, played too much like a team that is more or less waiting for the playoffs to begin.

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The result was a 2-1 Boston win as Toronto was denied the opportunity to clinch a playoff berth in its first game back after a 3 ½ week international break.

Toronto only needs a single point to clinch a playoff but are in front for the hunt for first overall.

At stake is home ice throughout the playoffs, but also the opportunity to choose your first-round opponent between the third and fourth place finishers if it should finish first.

Boston’s focus is a little narrower. It needs as many points as it can get in the five, now four, remaining games as it began the night five points back of fourth-place Ottawa for the final playoff spot and shrank that deficit to two with Ottawa owning a game in hand.

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Boston maxed out in its first attempt following the break getting three points with a regulation win over a Toronto squad that had reeled off 11 wins in a row but has now lost two in a row for the first time since mid January.

Toronto’s 11-game winning streak was snapped just before the break with a loss in Ottawa.

Boston established a physical edge early on in this one keeping Toronto bottled up in its own end for the bulk of the first period before Toronto eventually found its game and matched Boston shot for shot.

But in the second Boston again started to pull away and this time it wasn’t just chances but goals that resulted.

With team captain Hilary Knight parked in front and providing a big screen, Emily Brown’s harmless looking shot from the high slot somehow found its way through all the traffic and eventually between goalkeeper Kristen Campbell’s legs for the opening goal.

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Just over three minutes later, a faceoff win by Susanna Tapani, fresh off a bronze medal at the IIHF Women’s World Championships with Finland, led to Boston’s second goal. Tapani won it cleanly back to Jess Healey. Healey threw it at the net and Tapani re-directed it past Campbell for a 2-goal Boston lead.

After a slow start to the game Toronto did start to pressure Boston but ran into the red-hot goaltending of Aerin Frankel.

Frankel, who starred in the American net in a silver-medal performance at the worlds before losing to Canada and many of PHWL Toronto’s players in that thrilling gold-medal win exacted a little revenge in this one. Though not at the same level as gold-medal game at the worlds, it was Frankel’s first opportunity to get back against some of the women that helped deny her a gold and she grabbed the opportunity and ran with it turning aside 23 of the 24 shots she faced for the win.

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The only one that beat her came off the stick of Renata Fast who was named best defender at the world’s in Utica. On the goal early in the third, Fast drove to the net and tucked the puck past Frankel who had left a sliver of an opening between her pad and the post.

Toronto’s leading scorer Natalie Spooner had a team-high four shots on Frankel who seemed to save her biggest saves for those Spooner opportunities.

Campbell, herself a member of Canada’s gold-medal roster but who did not get a start in the tournament, showed no rust from the lack of game play handling 19 of Boston’s 21 shots. The two that beat her either came with her screened or were tipped at the last moment.

Things don’t get any easier for Toronto.

Montreal, Toronto’s next opponent Saturday at the Bell Centre where a new professional women’s hockey attendance record is expected to be set, did Troy Ryan’s team a favour rallying from a 3-2 deficit to defeat Minnesota 4-3 in Verdun.

A Minnesota win would have given them first overall and bumped Toronto to second.

Instead, Toronto retains its one-point lead on Minnesota for first but now has Montreal just two points back as the chase for top spot gets ever tighter.

The bad news for any Montreal opponent is Mari -Philip Poulin is not only healthy again but as engaged and hungry to win as ever as evidence by her three-point night in the win over Minnesota.

mganter@postmedia.com

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