March 10, 2024
Captain Marie-Philip Poulin’s absence felt in loss to Ottawa
The absence of Montreal captain Marie-Philip Poulin was heavily felt on Sunday afternoon at Place Bell, as Ottawa defeats Montreal for the first time in this inaugural PWHL season. This was the fourth time the two sides have met so far, with Montreal the first three matches – but Montreal without Poulin is a much different team.
Poulin has been side-lined with a lower back injury that she suffered in a physical tilt in Toronto on Friday, that occurred late in the third period. Poulin could be seen limping back to the bench in obvious pain and is listed as day-to-day. Poulin, 32, leads Montreal in goals, assists and points and is a big loss to her squad. In sixteen games, she has seventeen points including eight goals. She is currently second in the league in points, one back of New York’s Alex Carpenter.
See Also: Newly signed Melodie Daoust leads Montreal over Boston
The loss is Montreal’s second in a row, having been beaten away at Toronto Friday in a 3-0 shutout loss, and the first time the team has faced such a feat. More concerning is perhaps Montreal’s sudden struggles to score goals. It them until midway through the third period to find the back of the net tonight, when Laura Stacey scored at the 11:05 mark – breaking slightly over two hours of playing time since their last marker. While it isn’t the end of the world, and teams will face rough patches, if Poulin isn’t able to go next week, they will have to find someone to step up and replace her output.
Captain Brianne Jenner scored in the waning seconds of the first period to give Ottawa the lead, firing a bullet of a shot from just outside the right circle.
Montreal found themselves in familiar territory but once again taking costly penalties. In the second period, Sarah Lefort was issued an interference penalty and while on the penalty kill, Montreal goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens was given two-minutes for delay of game when she handled the puck outside of the crease instead of freezing it. If Montreal coach Kori Cheverie was upset over bad refereeing in Toronto on Friday, then she must have been livid at the missing call just seconds before Desbiens was issued her penalty.
Moments earlier, Ottawa’s Lexie Adzija had blatantly tripped Desbiens behind her own net, and no penalty had been called. The missed call lead directly to Desbiens error which only adds salt to the wound. Montreal would be two players short for the next 44 seconds but did well in shutting down Ottawa’s power play attempts.
About a minute after Montreal returned to full-strength, Daryl Watts ripped a shot off the post and in, giving Ottawa a two-goal lead.
Montreal themselves had two power play chances in the third, and Stacey capitalized on the second, bringing Montreal to within one goal – but Ottawa wasn’t about to take their collective foot off the throttle. A minute and a half later, Aneta Tejralovà’s point shot floated past Desbiens on what looked like a fairly innocent play, yet somehow found the back of the net, and restored Ottawa’s two-goal lead.
The physical and at times chippy contest lead to Mélodie Daoust scoring Montreal’s second goal of the game with just three minutes remaining, when a battle in front of Ottawa goalie Emerance Maschmeyer, when a loose puck fell to Daoust who fired a backhand into the gaping net. Ottawa would respond with an empty net goal from Gabbie Hughes to seal the deal, and their first win against Montreal in the PWHL.
“It’s our first time losing two in a row and for us there’s two ways to look at that,” said Stacey. “It’s ‘shoot we just lost two in a row’ or ‘wow this is the first time all season we’ve lost two in a row’ and I think that’s important for us as players to look at both sides of that picture and say ‘it’s okay, it’s hockey’. Of course we don’t want that to happen, of course we have another big game coming up, yes we just lost to Ottawa but we’re hockey players, we’re going to bounce back. Two in a row is not the end of the world especially if we put our work boots on and show up and we prepare to get better.”
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Montreal return to action on March 17 when they take on Toronto at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, but coach Cheverie said she is unsure if Poulin will be ready for a return by then. Toronto and Montreal are now tired for top spot in the standings with Toronto holding a game in hand – and Montreal has yet to find any sort of success against Toronto this season – and have been shut out by them twice so far.
Cheverie will be hoping for a little luck of the Irish for their St. Patrick’s day tilt – hoping her captain is ready to go and that her team can find a way to beat Toronto and regain the league lead.
