It might have only been Game 2, but since it’s a best-out-of-five series, PWHL Montreal was already in a do-or-die situation last night. After losing Game 1 to PWHL Boston at home, Montreal couldn’t afford to let Game 2 slip out.
You Win as a Team, and You Lose as a Team
Fatigue is a big factor when a game lasts 111 minutes and 44 seconds, and Montreal’s bench management was part of their issues last night. As good as your National Team players are, they are still human beings. If you play them for an unreasonable amount of time, they will tire and become less efficient.
Last night, Erin Ambrose spent 61 minutes and 33 seconds on the ice; according to Stathead, that would be fifth all-time in the NHL. Marie-Philip Poulin was on the ice for over 45 minutes, and head coach Kori Cheverie used her first line of Poulin, Laura Stacey, and Kristin O’Neil every other shift in overtime. All night long, she shortened her bench. Granted, the fourth line was on the ice for the goal against in the first period, but there’s benching and benching, especially when the goal was a fluky one on a shot from the back of the net. Ironically, it was Boston’s fourth line that scored the game-winning goal. Asked how she manages to throw a player who has hardly played on the ice in overtime, Cheverie said:
It’s not easy, we obviously want to be able to utilize everybody as much as we can. You know it’s a quick conversation: “Get ready, you’re going in”. In this moment, you don’t have time to think, and you know, I thought for the players who didn’t play for a while and then came back in, I thought they contributed great, it’s just a whole other level in playoffs. I would love for everybody to be able to contribute and I think it will happen, I think it’s just going to happen on different nights, so they gave us, the bottom half of our line-up, some minutes to rest some of our good players and that’s their job too. We’ll keep trying to play around with it and hopefully, we don’t go into overtime.
In other words, Cheverie doesn’t plan to change her strategy. I’ve got to say that Courtney Kessel outcoached her yesterday. The Boston bench boss used most of her bench for the whole game. When Ambrose, Montreal’s best defenseman, had 55 minutes of ice time, Boston’s top defender, Megan Keller, had 40 minutes of ice time. Even if we consider Keller was in the penalty box for four minutes, there’s still a considerable difference.
Being Able to Convert Opportunities
Scoring is a big issue for this Montreal team, and it’s been the case for much of the season. When it happens in sudden death overtime, though, it can be fatal, as it was last night. A little over six minutes into the first overtime, Lexie Adzija got a five-minute major penalty and was tossed out of the game for hitting Laura Stacey in the head. Not only was Montreal unable to score on that opportunity, but they also put very few shots on the net.
Related: PWHL Montreal vs Boston: 3 Takeaways From Game 1
Ten minutes later, Keller was sent off for two minutes for delay of game, and once again, Montreal couldn’t convert. They spent seven minutes of the first overtime on the power play, 35% of the period. When you cannot finish the game in that situation, you’re just asking to lose the game, and that’s exactly what happened.
Ann-Renée Desbiens was an absolute beast in the net. She made 50 saves out of 52 shots and couldn’t have played better. She kept her team in the game, but unfortunately, she couldn’t score a goal, and those who could failed to do so.
At such a late stage of the game, you have to have a killer instinct to put the game away, and when you don’t have it, you will pay for it eventually.
Hockey Is a Risky Game
I know that in playoff hockey, refs tend to make fewer calls, but what we’ve seen in the first two games of this series is ridiculous. Even in the NHL, obvious calls are still made. The officials took a long time to call the hit-to-the-head penalty against Adzija and had the referees revised the play; I’m not sure she would have been tossed out.
I’m using this example, but there were missed calls on both sides, and hits got more vicious as the game went on. If the officials cannot keep control of the game, things can get out of hand and could even become dangerous for the players. The way I see it, this is exactly what has been happening in this series so far. The PWHL decision-makers have got to react before there’s another Denna Laing accident. When asked if games could eventually become dangerous for the health of the players, Kessel replied:
Yeah I think unfortunately that’s really out of my control, what the refs do and we’ve got to focus on our game and winning and that’s what we’re here for. The hope is that it’s a safe game and we always want everyone to be safe, so I think if it does get out of hand for sure you want to see some calls being made, at the end of the day, it’s the safety for the athletes that’s the most important.
Montreal is now on the brink of elimination heading into Boston and faces a monumental challenge, with Aerin Frankle being lights-out in the first two games. If some adjustments aren’t made to the coaching strategy, I think this could be a very short series. People in Montreal were expecting a Toronto vs Montreal final, but you have to think about the present time and take the semi-final round just as seriously. Game 3 will be held on Tuesday at 7:00 PM and could very well be the end of the road for Montreal.