Breaking: Boston’s Marathon: Missed opportunities cost Montreal as Boston takes 2-0 series….
Montreal’s inaugural season has been full of ups and downs, but it is one loss away from ending after a heartbreaking loss, 2-1 to Boston in triple overtime on Saturday night at Place Bell in Laval.
Taylor Wenczkowski crashed the net and put a rebound past Ann-Renée Desbiens with 8:16 remaining in the third overtime to give the visitors a commanding 2-0 lead in their best-of-five PWHL semifinal.
TAYLOR WENZCKOWSKI’S FIRST PWHL GOAL IS A 3OT GAME WINNER!
Boston takes the 2-0 series lead. pic.twitter.com/nB9gd2XgSX
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) May 12, 2024
“It was great,” Wenczkowski said. “It was awesome. I was so happy to end it and go back to Boston with two wins.” It was Wenczkowski’s first PWHL goal, after she did not score in the regular season.
The 111:44 of game time was the second-longest pro women’s hockey game in North American history falling just short of the 114:01 in game three of the 2018 CWHL semifinal.
Montreal will now need to win two games in Boston just to bring the series back to Montreal for a deciding Game 5.
“We knew this was going to happen with Montreal,” said Boston head coach Courtney Kessel. “I think we battled all year and what a tremendous effort by every single athlete out there. It takes a lot to basically play two games of hockey and luckily we came out on the better side of that.”
The top five players on Montreal: Erin Ambrose, Kati Tabin, Marie-Philip Poulin, Kristin O’Neill, and Laura Stacey all played more than 50 minutes, with Ambrose playing a game-high 61:33. Hilary Knight led all Boston players at 49:23.
“We recently had someone come in and talk to us and they told us when your body is giving out, or when you don’t feel like you have anything left physically, that’s when you have to pull through,” Stacey said. “You never know what you have left inside you. That’s what we kept saying to ourselves in the locker room, on the bench is, ‘it hurts, it doesn’t feel nice but let’s just keep pushing and doing whatever we can mentally to get through this’.”
It’s not that Montreal didn’t have opportunities. They had seven minutes of power play time in the first overtime thanks to a Lexie Adzija major and game misconduct. Adzija hit Montreal forward Laura Stacey in the head, and after review from the officials, the major was upheld for intent to injure.
Lexie Adzija gets a major penalty and game misconduct for a hit to the head of Laura Stacey.
MTL is headed on to the power play in OT. pic.twitter.com/cDI6q8zmoC
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) May 12, 2024
After not scoring on the major, and really not even seemingly getting too close, they had an additional two minute power play when Boston’s Megan Keller dumped the puck over the glass. Once again, they came up short. Boston had a power play of their own to open the second overtime, but also could not convert. In all Montreal went 1/4 with the advantage while Boston was 0/2.
The closest Montreal came to winning the game may have come in the third overtime when the an Erin Ambrose shot trickled behind Frankel and rolled just wide of the post.
WHAT A CHANCE FOR MTL! pic.twitter.com/xTb9d8KFJW
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) May 12, 2024
That wasn’t the only chance. Stacey hit the post early in the first overtime, while Montreal needed Desbiens to make big saves as well. In all, Desbiens made 50 saves while Frankel made 56, just two days after making 53 in Game 1 of the series. Montreal has scored just two goals on 111 shots through two games while Boston has four goals on 78 shots. Both games ended 2-1 in overtime.
“Obviously we’d like to get more offence,” said Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie. “I like the looks were getting right now and obviously we’re playing against a really hot goalie. I wouldn’t call it a problem. I hope you guys are asking Boston what their problem is too because they’ve only scored very limited goals as well. It’s a three-out-of-five. We have to move on from these first two games, learn what we can and move on.”
Boston opened the scoring 6:48 into the first period when Amanda Pelkey’s pass from behind the net hit off of Catherine Dubois and past Desbiens. It was Boston’s first lead of the series after they trailed in Game 1 and only pulled ahead in overtime. On the next shift, Hannah Brandt had a great chance and hit the post which gave Montreal a reprieve.
Early in the second period, the Montreal power play struck. Maureen Murphy’s shot was saved by Frankel but Kristin O’Neill pounced on the rebound to make it 1-1. It was O’Neill’s second power play goal of the series, and she is the only player in the league to have scored a power play goal in the playoffs.
O’Neill crée l’égalité 🙌
Don’t leave K.O alone pic.twitter.com/Kg2FTptsA6
— x – LPHF Montréal (@PWHL_Montreal) May 12, 2024
Montreal actually got a second puck into the back of the net with 30 seconds remaining, when the puck came loose after Frankel made the save. The league initiated a review, but it was ruled that even though the whistle was blown after the puck had come loose, the official ruled the play dead before that and the puck entered the net after the whistle.
Le jeu en question, mais après révision le but n’est pas alloué…l’arbitre avait sifflé avant que le rondelle frachisse la ligne ☠️
This was the play in question, but after revision it is no goal…..the referee had whistled before the puck crossed the line pic.twitter.com/ozD4ebqukg
— x – LPHF Montréal (@PWHL_Montreal) May 12, 2024
There was another similar review in the final minute of the second overtime for a possible Boston goal, but the puck was ruled to not cross the line, and play had been called.
Right after the goal was disallowed in the third period, Stacey, who led all players with nine shots on goal (not even counting shots that missed the net or hit the post), had a big chance with 15 seconds left but could not convert.
“Hockey is a pretty frustrating sport at times,” said Stacey. “We also love it, that’s why do it, that’s why we’ve been here for so long. We want to win hockey games, we want to give the crowd something to cheer about. We want to score. We want to beat Boston. Obviously that’s not happening at the moment. We’ve battled, we took it to three overtimes, we battled. We can be frustrated all we want but at the end of the day, we will keep pushing. That’s the most important thing that we can take from these two games is to realize how much we have inside of us.”
The sold-out crowd of 10,172 mostly stayed through the entire game, and was so loud at times it was hard to hear most whistles.
“That’s probably one of the reasons that it hurts so much,” Stacey said about leaving the fans disappointed. “For every woman in that locker room, the staff that was there until midnight, it hurts a lot for that but also every fan that stayed in that, who cheered us on, who gave us a standing ovation even after we lost. They pushed us to keep going when we didn’t even think we had it in us. It stings tonight, it’s going to sting tonight, and we’re going to let it sting tonight because it should. We’re going to get up tomorrow, the sun’s going to rise and it’s a new day and we’re heading to Boston to get a win.”
The two teams now head to Lowell where they will play Game 3 on Tuesday night. Four of the six games these two teams have played have needed overtime, and one of the games that ended in regulation saw the winning goal scored with under two minutes remaining. Boston has now won three straight games against Montreal going back to the final game of the regular season.
“It’s not the situation we wanted, but we’ll take it,” said Sarah Lefort. “We have three games left, one game at a time. We’re going to Boston, we’ll take the boos and we’re ready for that.”
“We’re already having good conversations in the coaching room,” said Cheverie. “We already have a plan in place for game three. It’s not like it was 3-0 or 4-0 games. It could have went either way and when that happens, as much as you hate to lose, you have to move forward and be OK with one mistake or decision that makes the difference.”
