By Canadian Press

‘A lesson in penalty killing’: Solid PK helps Victoire climb to top of PWHL standings

Dec 30, 2024 | 9:56 PM

LAVAL, Que. — The Montreal Victoire’s power play may be struggling, but their penalty kill is helping them win games and move up the standings.

Montreal thwarted the Boston Fleet’s power play five times — including a five-minute major to start the third period — en route to a 3-1 win on Monday night in the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

Kristin O’Neill also scored a short-handed goal in the second period that stood as the game-winner.

“It was a lesson in penalty killing,” said Victoire goalie Ann-Renée Desbiens, who stopped 18 shots before a sellout crowd of 10,172 at Place Bell.

With a 3-1 lead, the Victoire held the Fleet to only one shot after forward Catherine Dubois’s game misconduct for hitting Boston defender Megan Keller to the head to end the second.

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Montreal also shut down Boston’s power play — which entered 4 for 10 on the season — twice more in the third period of a chippy contest between former playoff foes.

“Our PK was probably hungrier than their power play,” Victoire head coach Kori Cheverie said. “I didn’t think we gave up a lot of quality opportunities to them, a lot of good looks.”

“I thought that there were a couple of penalties that were not disciplined, and luckily our PK was able to combat that,” she added.

Montreal’s league-worst power play fell to 2 for 25 on the season and has failed to score in its last 18 attempts.

The penalty kill, however, ranks second in the league (15 for 17) after Monday night’s showing.

Cheverie said her team rallied around Dubois between periods, leading to the stellar five-minute kill.

“A big hit from a player like Dubois, who works as hard as she does, I think that’s a penalty that the players were ready to kill,” Cheverie said. “The five-minute (PK), I didn’t think we gave up hardly anything at all.”

“She’s one of the best teammates,” added Desbiens. “She’ll always put the team first, so we owed her one, and that’s what we did out there.”

Adding insult to injury, the Fleet only generated one more shot on goal the rest of the period.

“It was terrible,” head coach Courtney Kessel said of the five-minute power play. “One of the hardest things to do is to come out to start a period on the power play, and sometimes you don’t play with urgency because you think you’re up a player.

“From there, it went downhill.”

The Victoire (3-2-0-1) took over first place in the six-team PWHL standings with their fourth consecutive win. They have 13 points, one more than the Minnesota Frost.

Boston (2-0-0-4) sits last in the league with six points. The Fleet also have only 12 goals through six games to rank last in the league, continuing a trend from last season.

“We needed to put the puck in the back of the net on our special teams, especially for the number of power plays that we got,” said captain Hilary Knight, Boston’s only goal scorer. “We’re just short of executing.”

The two teams will meet again on Jan. 5 in Seattle as part of the PWHL’s Takeover Tour.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 30, 2024.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press

<!– Photo: 49a93228da916d3c0d77d2ef8b2c0eecc7e15294f6968c9674a9f3e81edd0b5b.jpg, Caption:

Montreal Victoire’s Marie-Philip Poulin (29) collides with Boston Fleet’s Sydney Bard (15) during third period PWHL hockey action in Laval, Que., Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

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