Most coaches are fond of extolling the virtues of “taking things one game at a time,” but after his Toronto Sceptres left Xcel Energy Center with a 2-1 victory over the Frost on Sunday afternoon, Sceptres coach Troy Ryan was more than happy to talk about breaking from the norm.
The Sceptres entered the game tied with the Frost for second place in the PWHL standings and have now won six in a row.
“We usually don’t, but we did look at this in a little bit of a three-game segment,” Ryan said. “We felt we had the opportunity to create some distance with New York with our last game. We targeted this game as a potential opportunity to battle for second place, with anticipation, if we were successful, that the next one against Montreal is for first pace.
“We don’t often look that far ahead, but we thought, on the road, to keep things interesting, we broke it down into a three-game segment and how all those games were so purposeful.”
Playing before an announced crowd of 8,770 in their first home game in nearly a month, the Frost came up short in trying to build off a 4-0 win over Montreal in their last game.
“It’s just big points,” Frost coach Ken Klee said of how his team approached the game. “I know we’re all kind of smooshed together and tied, and like I said to our players afterward, points are on the line every night and we’ve got to try to get points.
“It’s coming down to the last 10 games. We’ve basically got two playoff series. If we can win three out of five, three out of five, basically we’re in the playoffs. We know we’re right in the mix of it. We’ve just got to be confident in that.”
Klee said he was pleased with his team’s effort, but said a familiar bugaboo played a key role in the Frost coming up short.
“We’ve just got to find a way to bury pucks,” Klee said. “We had lots of looks, we had lots of chances. I liked our game, I loved our jump. We’ve just got to find a way to finish.
“We had the 1-0 lead, and obviously we’d like to try to make it 2 and 3 if we can. But they’re a good team. They play hard, and you know it’s going to be tight.”
Frost center Taylor Heise gave credit to the Sceptres for limiting their scoring chances while agreeing with Klee that they got enough good looks to produce a different outcome.
“I think our rushes — I don’t think we got any many to-on-ones and three-on-twos as we wanted,” Heise said. “That’s what can happen when you get the puck up quick, but they did a good job of getting back.
“At the end of the day you have to put the puck in the net. That’s what we get paid to do, so we’re just going to have to figure it out.”
Toronto defender Savannah Harmon said the key to shutting down the Frost’s offense was staying aggressive. “Making hard plays and not sitting back,” she said. “When we had the lead, to just keep playing our style.”
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The Frost scored the only goal in the first period. Dominque Petrie intercepted a pass behind the Toronto net and made a quick pass out front to Michela Cava, who beat Sceptres goaltender Kristen Campbell from in tight for her eighth goal of the season.
The Frost’s Brooke McQuigge was given a five-minute penalty and game misconduct at 7:49 of the second period for a hit to the head. The Frost were 52 seconds from killing off the penalty when Toronto’s Emma Maltais beat Maddie Rooney on a wrist shot from the slot to tie the game.
The game-winner came at 7:13 of the third period, with Jesse Compher scoring on a rebound. The Frost had one great chance to tie the game in the closing seconds after pulling their goaltender, but Claire Thompson’s screen shot from the point banged off the post.
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