On Feb. 18, the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) had a solid contest between the top two teams in the league with Minnesota visiting Montreal, with the home team getting a 2-1 win in regulation. After that win, Montreal now sits at 20 points while Minnesota stays at 21, making the standings even closer than what they once were. What were some takeaways from this game?
Montreal Gets Power Play Working
One area where the PWHL has not been the brightest is its power plays. The impact of losing a player just doesn’t seem to be that great most of the time, with passes across the ice into open space oftentimes not resulting in high-danger chances and opposing netminders being able to snuff out chances easily when they have time to make saves as a result of that. But for Montreal, they went with the approach of sending their extra players to the front of the net and it worked.
Late in their man advantage, Kati Tabin fired a shot from the point with two teammates in front of Minnesota goaltender Maddie Rooney’s crease, and Claire Dalton got her stick on it to get Montreal on the board early in the first period. Perhaps new rules need to be passed to make power plays more effective because they just haven’t seemed like a big advantage thus far. The PWHL flourishes on rush chances, and those just don’t happen all that much on the power play. In that case, however, Montreal figured it out.
Established Zone Time Got Minnesota on the Board
With about three minutes remaining in the first period, Minnesota seemed destined to get their goal back. They entered the Montreal zone at around that mark, had to re-establish just outside of it, and then went right back to work like nothing happened. Through all this pressure, Minnesota captain Kendall Coyne Schofield got on the board to knot up the game at one apiece with just over two minutes remaining. So, for about a minute, it was all Minnesota offensively.
Getting back to the “many goals are scored on the rush” point, it’s great to see goals being scored in other ways. It’s not that all the goals in the league are scored off of rush chances, but many of them are and that’s normal for hockey at this level. Only the true star players and teams can have a long stint of pressure and actually score on it, and that’s what Minnesota did.
It might not seem like much, but a sequence like that shows the immense talent that they have. They won the puck battles they needed to, put a good shot on net, and had Schofield get to the rebound with nobody on Montreal being able to get there first. Minnesota can take control rather quickly, and they showed it in that instance.
Montreal Returns the Favor
As if they wanted to copy the recipe Minnesota had, Montreal scored their second goal, the game-winner, in a very similar way. When Montreal entered the zone late in the second, it didn’t seem too dangerous at first. But rather quickly, it turned into a scoring chance.
A keep at the blue line let Montreal get past many of the Minnesota skaters, and a deep 2-on-1 ensued. A pass across from Sarah Lefort turned into a rebound with a yawning net for her to shoot at, and she buried it for her first in the PWHL with no issues.
Related: Get to Know the 2024 PWHL Montreal Players
A pretty solid period from Minnesota was undone by that goal, and it was a rough one. It shows that even the simplest of breakdowns can be the difference between winning and losing a game, and it cost Minnesota dearly considering they were playing the team right behind them. There’s still a lot of season to go, but it was tough to lose in regulation because it allowed Montreal to have a three-point jump on them versus a one-point jump if they were to have won in overtime instead — the worst-case scenario.
PWHL Competitiveness Being Shown
As a whole, the competitiveness in the PWHL was proven once again in this one. For a while, it looked like Minnesota was running away with the league and would be a lock to finish first in the standings. But that great lead has faded and now they look like they could be passed by several teams. They won’t be able to take their foot off the gas.
As for Montreal, they are coming off a 3-0 shutout loss to Toronto, a team that started the season as one of the bottom feeders. Now, they are one of the hotter clubs and could threaten for first place when all is said and done with their five regulation wins. No matter who is playing, no result is a true lock. Anything can happen in this league, and it’s impossible to say who will make the playoffs or who will end up winning the most in them.
The skill in the PWHL cannot be understated. There really is no major advantage for one club over the other in terms of raw talent because there is so much. Montreal is now 2-1-0 against Minnesota with a goal differential of minus-1, showing just how tight these teams play one another. They’re set to play at least two more times this season barring what happens in the playoffs, so their “rivalry” will be interesting to monitor.
Coming up, Montreal will visit New York on Feb. 21 for a chance to move into sole possession of first place with a win of any kind. For Minnesota, they’ll have a week off after a back-to-back they ended in this one. They’ll return to the ice on Feb. 25 with a meetup against Boston back home at Xcel Energy Center.
