On Saturday afternoon, the semifinal series between the Montréal Victoire and the Minnesota Frost opened with a real barn burner. In the end, Minnesota came away with a 5-4 overtime win to take a 1-0 series lead.
While there were positives to take away for the Victoire––most notably, a hat-trick from Laura Stacey––a slow start and a set of poor penalties prevented them from taking the early series lead at home. Heading into Game 2 on Tuesday, here are some keys for the Victoire to tie up this series.
Sleepy Start
On Saturday afternoon, the Victoire didn’t start on time, plain and simple. Through the first period, Montréal looked one step slower than Minnesota, tallying just five shots and falling 2-0 heading into the first intermission.
“Early in a game, teams are willing and eager to play defence,” head coach Kori Cheverie said after the game. “Their gaps are tight, they’re tracking hard, they’ve got good details. So you have to really earn your game. And I would have liked to see us earn a little bit more of our game. Get our forecheck established, put pucks behind them, make them turn. I don’t think we were as committed to that early on.”
Turning to Game 2, it will be crucial for Montréal to assert themselves early. As Saturday’s game showed, things quickly get out of hand when you don’t play your game from the get-go.
“We can learn from it, but we can also forget about it and move on,” Stacey said. “We know that we can come out strong and dominate right from that first puck drop. So I think it’s just a matter of, in that locker room, talking about it, bringing it up. Realizing, like, hey guys, that wasn’t our best start. This next game, that’s something we’re focusing on. We’re getting pucks deep, we’re getting a difficult shot on net. We’re doing simple things that we know we can control.”
Penalty Kill
At practice on Friday morning, Cheverie was clear she’s not worried about her team heading to the box, as long as it’s for the right reasons.
“I think it’s about taking the right kind of penalties,” Cheverie said on Friday. “I’m okay with our group taking penalties, I have high confidence in our penalty kill. It’s when we take penalties 200 feet away from our net, neutral zone penalties, they just can’t happen.”
Against the Frost on Saturday, Montréal took seven minor penalties. They managed to hold Minnesota to just one power-play goal on five opportunities, but a set of bad penalties kept them from establishing their game in the second period. After the game, Cheverie wouldn’t comment on individual calls, but stated “I thought we took too many penalties.”
Assessed four straight minors in the middle frame, tensions began to rise on the ice for the Victoire, evidently frustrated with the officiating. And after the game, Abby Roque didn’t shy away from voicing her displeasure with the officiating.
“You know, I wasn’t happy,” she said. “In the end, I think a lot of this stuff, when they try to bring both people, like, just let them both go to the bench. Like, if it’s a litttle kerfuffle, it’s fine. Just let them go to the bench. It’s all good. Most of us are fine with that, if we both skate away. Sometimes penalties have to be called, here were some that were clear penalties, and that’s all good. We know that’s gonna happen. But there were definitely some calls that it’s, just let it go. It’s playoff hockey.”
While there were some controversial calls in the game, there were also straightforward penalties that the Victoire didn’t need to take. This season, the Frost had the league’s best power play (23.0%), while Montréal had the league’s best penalty kill (91.8%). The Victoire did a good job overall shutting down Minnesota’s power play in Game 1, but in the playoffs you can’t give anything away for free.
Heading into Game 2, this needs to be a point of focus. The Victoire need to keep playing hard, trusting their penalty kill to bail them out when going for a risky defensive move. But they have to avoid going to the box for no reason.