The Toronto Sceptres winning streak was snapped as the PWHL leading Montreal Victoire come away with a 3-1 win in Laval.
With the loss, the Sceptres have yet to beat the Victoire this season.
Here are three takeaways from the Sceptres loss.
Jesse Compher has been a reliable source of offence this season, especially against the Victoire.
Compher scored Toronto’s only goal of the game snapping a shot off the post and into the net. With the goal, the winger has scored a goal in all four of the Sceptres games against the Victoire.
Compher hasn’t just produced against Montreal this season, as in 21 games she has scored 15 points for the Sceptres.
This spike in production has been a pleasant surprise after Compher scored only five total points in 24 games during the inaugural season.
Compher is one of five players on the Sceptres to average over half a point a game, proving to be a pivotal contributor.
With two of the Sceptres top players out of the lineup, they could not find a way to capitalize on their chances, and they had plenty of them.
In the second period Hayley Scamurra found her way to the middle of the ice firing a shot at point blank, but the glove of Ann-Renée Desbiens flashed up to make the save.
No missed opportunity was more disappointing than in the third period, when bown by one goal, Daryl Watts found Emma Maltias with a pass that she could not direct into a wide open net, staring skywards in disbelief.
With the Victoire not giving the Sceptres many opportunities on the power play, the offence of the Sceptres sputtered.
They had a hard time finding ways to the center of the slot as the Victoire forced most of Toronto’s passes to the outside. This limited the damage they could do despite having long periods of time controlling the puck in the offensive zone.
Overall the Sceptres had 8 of their 25 total shots from the slot but could not solve Desbiens Tuesday night.
On their winning streak the Sceptres’ power play has been their most powerful weapon, but as Montreal showed tonight, they may be too reliant on it to produce offence.
In Laval on Tuesday the Victoire limited Toronto’s chances on the power play only taking two penalties.
When they did take one, Montreal did not allow the Sceptres to get set up only allowing one shot during their first attempt with the extra skater.
Over the course of their winning streak, 52.6% of the Sceptres goals came from the power play. No team should rely that much on their special teams to provide for their offense. If the Sceptres want to be a contender they need to be able to produce more during even strength so that when the power play goes through a drought, their offensive production won’t disappear.
The Sceptres will look for revenge as they host the Montreal Victoire on March 6 after a long break.
