The Fleet and Victoire met for the primary time Monday evening since Boston swept Montreal out of the playoffs final season with three extra time victories.
Montreal exacted revenge on Boston by defeating their rivals 3-1 north of the border at Place Bell. Unable to generate any kind of offensive strain towards the Victoire, the Fleet dropped to 2-4-0 on the season.
Boston had its possibilities with 5 energy play alternatives, together with prolonged time to start the third interval after Montreal ahead Catherine Dubois was referred to as for a test to the pinnacle on Megan Keller. Dubois acquired a five-minute main and a recreation misconduct, however the Fleet have been unable to get something occurring the person benefit. Montreal held Boston to 1 shot.
“It was horrible,” Fleet head coach Courtney Kessel advised reporters in Montreal, per team-provided audio. “I feel one of many hardest issues to do is to return out to begin a interval on an influence play. Typically, you don’t play with urgency since you assume you’re up a participant, and from there, it simply went downhill.”
The Fleet entered the sport main the league with 4 power-play targets on 10 alternatives, however have dropped to 26.7%. The Victoire penalty kill improves to second within the league at 88.2% (15/17).
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“I feel we fought the puck a little bit bit,” Kessel mentioned of the power-play outage. “I feel we tried to do a lot and we didn’t preserve it easy like we had been doing the final 5 video games.
The Fleet additionally surrendered a shorthanded aim to Kristin O’Neill within the second interval. Montreal leads the PWHL with two jailbreak targets this season.
Boston captain Hilary Knight tallied her third aim of the season and has 5 factors in six video games for the Fleet, however understood her crew’s shortcomings towards Montreal.
“I feel we would have liked to place the puck at the back of the web on our particular groups, particularly for the variety of energy performs that we bought,” Knight mentioned, per team-provided audio. “We have been simply wanting executing. We’re going to take this again, work on it and it’s onto the following recreation.”
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With the Fleet away from dwelling on a six-game street journey, Kessel opted to offer No. 1 goaltender Aerin Frankel the evening off. Emma Söderberg bought the nod for her first profession begin between the pipes towards Montreal. Söderberg stopped 28 of 31 pictures she confronted in her season debut.
“We’ve got three great goaltenders, and we’re on the street right here one other 9 days,” Kessel defined. “I feel it’s a complete of 17 days residing out of our baggage, so it’s going to be onerous, however when you’ve got three nice goalies you would possibly as nicely play them.
Boston has now misplaced three straight street video games to open the season. The Fleet will search for their first street win on Thursday evening once they journey to Minnesota to tackle the defending Walter Cup champion Frost. Puck drop from Xcel Vitality Middle is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET, and you may watch all of the motion on NESN.
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