It’s a classic battle once again; Boston and Montreal.
Just the Facts
- The Time: 4pm PT
- The Place: Tsongas Center, Lowell, Massachusetts
- Place to Watch: NESN, Youtube.com, RDS
Know Your Enemy
- Montreal is first in the league with a 5-3-3-2 record, or an 8-3-2 record if you combine wins; in 13 games.
- Who else runs Montreal but Team Canada’s ultimate weapon; Marie-Philip Poulin. She’s got 12 points in 13 games and in general has been a holy terror around the league.
- Former long-time Boston Women’s Hockey legend Jillian Dempsey has 4 points in 12 games. She is dearly missed.
- While Emerence Maschmeyer has played the majority of starts for Montreal, they’re hardly the queen of SV%: That honor belongs to the other two netminders; Ann-Renee Desbiens and Elaine Chuli, who have been exceptional. Chuli herself has yet to post a loss, and leads the league in SV% with a .961%
Game Preview
The Boston PWHL team has had an interesting, if enormously disappointing season where they’ve managed to stay just ahead of the pack in the middle part of the PWHL…but only just. Their offensive woes have, again and again, made for a deeply frustrating experience where Boston finds themselves losing winnable games either by failing to get goals when they need them or getting into holes they can’t dig themselves out of. Not great for a number of forwards who were vaunted as some of the best in the game. Especially not great for those who were considered best in the world like say…Hilary Knight.
What luck then, that they get to face one of the best teams in the league, who have strong scoring across the board and are assuming that they’ll get to be the team who takes advantage of the new “First chooses their opponent in the playoffs” rule.
If they want to get anything going; they need to start putting far more trust in the players who have actually done something rather than the one on the poster I’m afraid; Alina Muller and Megan Keller have been absolute forces for the Green and Grey, while Loren Gabel, Susanna Tapani, and Theresa Schafzahl have proven to be rising threats of goal scoring. If they can keep the potent attack of Montreal in check, there’s a win in here somewhere, and if they manage to get that win, they will get critical points in staying ahead of New York and Ottawa.
Gonna need these girls to get with the program and win…or our half-season roundup is going to be a lot meaner than people would want it to be. Especially given how some players are handling their new place in the league.
Let’s go Boston!