Our weekly look through the best NWHL stats of the last week.
Emily Pfalzer Posts Five
Emily Pfalzer put up five assists in Sunday’s game. That’s a NWHL record for most points and most assists in a single game.
Coming into the weekend, Hilary Knight led the NWHL in assists with five. That’s a massive night for Pfalzer, who spearheaded an incredible comeback bid by the Beauts. They were down 6-1 at one point in the game, and rallied to force overtime before ultimately losing in a shootout.
Goals Gallore
That Beauts vs. Whale game finished in a 6-7 Connecticut shootout win. With 12 regulation goals, that’s the highest scoring game the league has had so far. It surpasses two eight-goal games that have happened: a 7-1 rout by the Boston Pride over the New York Riveters and a 5-3 Pride win over the Beauts.
However, neither team grabbed the highest scoring game by a single team. That’s still held by the Pride in their 7-1 win over the Riveters on October 18.
Rally Towels
As you might guess, just 10 games into the inaugural season, Buffalo’s five-goal rally is the biggest rally to tie a game in league history.
Extra Innings
That comeback led to the league’s first overtime match and first shootout. The only goal-scorer in the shootout was Kelly Babstock, making her the first player to score in a shootout and to have a shootout-winning goal.
Nicole Stock, who came into the game in relief of Jamie Leonoff in the second period, is the first goaltender to win a shootout and has a perfect 3-for-3 record in the shootout so far.
With the game requiring a shootout, we’re still looking for the league’s first overtime winner.
Multi-Point Nights
Though there were 12 regulation goals scored in that game, no one had a hat trick, leaving Boston’s Brianna Decker as the only player to have scored a hat trick so far.
Both Kelley Steadman and Kourtney Kunichika scored a pair of goals in the game though. This is Steadman’s second multi-goal game. Her and Decker are the only two players in the league to have recorded at least two goals in two games. The only other players to have scored a pair of goals in a single game are Boston’s Zoe Hickel and Hilary Knight. They have both done it once.
For her part, Knight posted her fourth multi-point game of the season. That’s the most in the league. Steadman and Decker’s multi-point games on Sunday have them tied for second with three each.
Kunichika, Babstock, Kaleigh Fratkin, and Meghan Duggan all posted their second multi-point game. The only player with more than one multi-point game who didn’t also post one this weekend was Boston’s Corinne Buie.
Fastest Goal Ever
The league has a new record for fastest goal to open a game, according to league scoresheets. The New York Riveters’ Brooke Ammerman scored just 1:11 into Sunday’s win over the Pride. That bests Brianna Decker’s goal 2:26 into a Pride win over the Riveters on October 18.
It wasn’t, however, the fastest goal to start a period. Buffalo’s Devon Skeets scored just 58 seconds into the second period of a November 15 game against the Whale. Ammerman’s goal will be the second fastest to open a period.
They’re followed by a Gabie Figueroa goal 1:37 into an October 18 game against the Pride and a Babstock goal 1:40 into a November 15 game against the Beauts.
Quick Tallies
The Beauts scored five unanswered goals in the second period on Sunday, to bring the game to a tie. Goals number four and five, scored by Kunichika and Duggan respectively, came just 17 seconds apart. That’s the second fastest a pair of goals have been tallied.
The fastest? Madison Packer and Beth Hanrahan’s tallies just 11 seconds apart in the Riveters first win, just one week ago.
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