A week after defeating the Toronto Sceptres, their bête noire of the inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, Kori Cheverie’s players overthrew the reigning Walter Cup champions and the team that dominated the standings before the start of the duel.
Defender Mariah Keopple and Quebec forward Alexandra Labelle both scored their first career goal in the LPHF at the expense of Maddie Rooney, who made 22 saves.
In her first game since December 4, Desbiens was especially busy in the third period during which she faced 10 of the Frost’s 24 shots.
Britta Curl-Salemme, in the first period, and Brooke McQuigge, in the second period, were the only ones to deceive his vigilance.
La Victoire will return to Place Bell and in front of its supporters on Monday when it will welcome the Boston Fleet, its winners from last May’s semi-finals.
Firsts in firsts
Two trends have emerged among the Victoire players since the season started: their inability to score in the first period and their failure to use the power play, particularly abroad.
For 15 minutes, these two phenomena seemed destined to repeat themselves, but the last five minutes of the first period allowed them to resolve one of these “problems”.
Failing to take advantage of two power play opportunities during the first six minutes of the clash, Victory struck not once, but twice towards the end of the period thanks to two players who had never before found the back of the net in the LPHF.
The honor of scoring the Montreal team’s first goal in the first period this season went to Keopple, who beat Rooney with a wrist shot from the blue line that first hit the horizontal bar, at 15 :35.
A little less than four minutes later, during the last minute of play in the period, Labelle was tenacious and, on her second attempt, she managed to slip the puck behind Rooney.
These two goals served as a bit of a reward for the Montreal team, who finished the first period with twice as many shots as their opponents, i.e. 10 to five.
A good overall game from the Victoire meant that the Frost had to wait until the eighth minute of play before testing Desbiens. But a little over a minute after this first shot, the Frost took the lead on its second official attempt towards the Victory goalkeeper.
Curl-Salemme led a three-man attack towards the Montreal zone and handed the puck to Taylor Heise who relayed it to Claire Thompson. The latter fired a wrist shot that hit the glove of Curl-Salemme, who had gone in front of the Montreal net, before beating Desbiens.
Not very busy during the first 20 minutes of play, the Victoire goalkeeper nevertheless made an important save on Grace Zumwinkle, about two minutes before Montreal’s first goal.
The Frost brought the match back to a tie in the fourth minute of the second period thanks to one of the rare moments, during the first 40 minutes of play, where the Montreal defense seemed disorganized.
After two saves in succession from Desbiens against Liz Schepers and Claire Butorac, McQuigge found an opening and scored his first of the season.
La Victoire regained a one-goal lead thanks to Poulin’s second goal. The Victory captain made a nice fake in front of Rooney to score with a backhand shot, after receiving a precise pass from Stacey during a two-on-one push, at 5:54 of the second twenty.
For a few minutes, midway through the period, Victory hoped to have made it 4-2 when a shot from Keopple hit Stacey, who was in the goalkeeper’s semi-circle, before ending up in the net . After a lengthy video review, the goal was ultimately disallowed.
In the third period, the Victoire was cautious and did not force anything in attack, as demonstrated by its four shots towards Rooney during the period.
Of the Frost’s shots in the third period, the most threatening came from Zumwinkle with a little more than two minutes remaining in regulation. But Desbiens was keeping an eye on things.
