Sceptres Gameday: Toronto meets Montréal in Vancouver

Montréal Victoire @ Toronto Sceptres
10:00 pm Eastern Time from Rogers Arena in Vancouver
Stream/Watch on TSN

Games are available outside Canada on YouTube and at thePWHL.com

The Victoire's last game was January 5 on the road in Boston. They lost in a shootout 3-2. They have a 0.667 Points % and are in first place.

The Sceptres last game was December 31 at home to Ottawa. They lost 2-1 in regulation. They have a 0.333 Points % and are in last place.

Them

With a record of 3 W - 2 OTW - 1 OTL - 1 L, the Victoire have only played one of their seven games and failed to get at least one point. The New York Sirens won that game. In Toronto's only prior game against them, the result was a win in overtime for Montréal.

The Victoire are still struggling on the power play with three goals for and one against in 28 opportunities. They've scored almost as much shorthanded (two goals) and their PK seems to be fine.

Both regular goalies, Ann-Renée Desbiens and Elaine Chuli are just below the Ottawa and New York crews who have extremely good results. Montréal's tandem are merely very good.

Montréal and Toronto have very similar rates of GF and they sit in the middle two spots in the league in that respect. The Victoire have the best GA rate and Toronto the worst. So while Montréal is not a high-scoring team so far, they haven't needed to be.

Us

Toronto doesn't have a goalie problem when Raygan Kirk has been in net, but Kristen Campbell is having a start to the season like last year's. She has the worst Save % of any goalie who has more than one start. Kirk is also merely average, so the Sceptres must score enough to counter that, and they just don't.

Their power play has been fine, but they chase the play so much, they don't draw penalties, they take them. And given the extent to which PK success is goalie success, it's not a surprise they have a terrible PK record with seven GA on 21 opportunities. Overall their special teams goal differential is -2 accounting for half of their overall differential of -4.

Their problems interrelate. Chasing the play leads to long periods of defending and extra pressure on the goalies. Meanwhile, the goalies aren't great, the team takes penalties which adds to the pressure, and the power plays don't come, so there's no way to get relief there.

It starts with puck possession. The goalies are the goalies, but what the team can do is get more vigorous defence from everyone on the ice and stay on that puck.

The Game

This is only game two with the new post-trade lineup, but it would be good to start seeing the expected benefits of what looked like a very good trade. And stay out of the box and out of your own end, Sceptres. You cannot rule from those places.