It was an interesting week in the NWHL with teams surprising expectations. The Pride, once thought to be a nearly unstoppable force, have now lost three straight. The Whale remain unbeaten. The Beauts finally tallied one up in the win column with a three-goal third period against the Riveters.
Here are some of the best NWHL stats and milestones from this week.
Moby Lives
The Whale extended their league-lead in the standings, recording their sixth straight win in a 4-3 win. The Pride rallied late to come within one on the back of a pair third-period goals from Amanda Pelkey and Kacey Bellamy.
On the other side of that coin, the Beauts beat the Riveters, grabbing the first win in franchise history. Brianne Mclaughlin stopped 27 of 28 New York shots to be the goalie of record in the team’s first win and Devon Skeats got the game-winner on one of her two goals. It was Skeats’s first multi-goal game.
Streaking Riveter
Madison Packer scored the lone Riveters goal in their loss, extending her goal streak to three games. That ties the season-high goal streak in the league and is the only active three-game goal streak.
Both Kelly Babstock and Kourtney Kunichika have put together three-game goal streaks as well. Both of those streaks came to an end this week.
Speedy Delivery
Shiann Darkangelo set a new record for fastest goal, potting one just 37 seconds into the game. That’s both the fastest goal to start a game and the fastest goal to start a period.
That bests Brooke Ammerman’s goal 1:11 into a game that happened just last week.
Season-Long Streaks
Coming into the weekend both Hilary Knight and Meghan Duggan had five-game point streaks going, having put up at least one point in each of this season’s games. Knight’s streak came to an end when she didn’t put up a point in the Pride loss to the Whale.
But her five-game point streak remains the longest on the season. Duggan didn’t play, so she’s tied with Knight, but has an active streak going. Brianna Decker also extended her point streak on Sunday. Her streak is at five games, having missed a game earlier in the season.
Jenny Scrivens – All In
With an injury to goaltender Nana Fujimoto in Sunday’s game, Jenny Scrivens got her first taste of game action. Now every goaltender in the league has seen time in a game.
Scrivens is still looking for her first start, but it may necessarily come in the team’s next game if Fujimoto’s injury will sideline her. (There’s no update on Fujimoto’s status at this point.) The team’s other goaltender, Shenae Lundberg, has been out of the lineup for a couple of weeks with an injury.
Penalty Leaders
Both Celeste Brown of the Riveters and Brianna Decker of the Pride took six minutes in penalties on Sunday. That ties a league-high for penalty minutes in a single game. Other players who have hit that total in previous weeks include the Whale’s Brittany Dougherty and Kelly Babstock, the Riveters Gabie Figueroa and the Pride’s Blake Bolden.
Both Brown and Decker’s season totals climbed up to 12 minutes, which leads the league, tied with the Riveters’ Kira Dosdall.
Penalty Killin’
The Riveters killed off all six of the Beauts power plays on Sunday. That’s the most the Riveters have ever killed in a game where they didn’t allow a power play goal to the opposition. That’s the third highest number of penalties killed in a game where a team didn’t allow a power play goal to the opposition league-wide.
The highest number of penalties killed goes to the Whale, who killed off all nine power plays they gave to the Beauts on November 15.
The second most was the Whale killing off seven Beauts power plays on October 18. No coincidence that all three of those marks came against the Beauts, who have struggled on the power play, despite having some potent weapons on their top unit.
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