Courtesy of the PWHL
Is there a rivalry brewing? The Minnesota Frost were in town to take on the New York Sirens at the Prudential Center and this is a matchup that has been tightly contested all season. In the previous meeting, New York recorded a dominant 5-0 shutout win mostly thanks to goaltender Corinne Schroeder. That victory gave the Sirens the season series edge over the Frost, going 2-0-0-1 in three games against them so far.
Minnesota entered this matchup with two straight wins, the most recent being a 4-2 victory over the Montreal Victoire in front of 14,018 fans at Ball Arena during the PWHL’s last Takeover Tour stop in Denver, Colorado. New York had lost three of their last five, but won their last outing 1-0 in overtime over the Toronto Sceptres. Schroeder, who became the first goaltender to ever post back-to-back shutouts in the PWHL regular season, was starting in net for the Sirens and was looking to make history. Plus, this game featured the top five point leaders in the league so it was sure to be an exciting contest.
The first period started with a fast pace, each team getting a few chances to get on the board first. The breakthrough came about seven minutes into the opening frame when Kelly Pannek scored her third goal of the season, but the play was quickly put under review to determine if there was a high stick. After a lengthy review, it was determined there was no goal. Shortly after the overturned goal, New York carried a majority of the momentum and the offensive zone pressure resulted in a goal as Paetyn Levis got a puck behind Minnesota’s goaltender Maddie Rooney to make the score 1-0. That’s the score that held for the remainder of the first 20 minutes of play.
It didn’t take long for the Frost to respond as just 1:32 into the second period Kendall Coyne-Schofield scored her fourth goal of the season to tie the game at 1-1. All four of Coyne-Schofield’s goals this season have come against the Sirens. Around the midway point, New York was sustaining pressure in the offensive zone once again but every shot was either stopped by Rooney or passes weren’t connecting in front of the net. The Frost got three different power play opportunities that were all unsuccessful and the game remained tied at the end of the middle frame.
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The third period was a back and forth affair with both teams putting shots on net, but nothing got through Schroeder or Rooney. A little past the halfway mark of the period, Mellissa Channell-Watkins fired a shot from above the right circle that went through traffic and into the net. Channell-Watkins’ first career PWHL goal gave the Frost the 2-1 lead with less than 10 minutes remaining. At 16:39 in the third, Chloe Aurard left for the locker room after a big hit on the board from Maggie Flaherty, who then received a boarding penalty which gave New York their first power play of the game. Seconds after the power play ended, Sarah Fillier found the back of the net for her fifth goal of the season to tie the game at 2-2 with 1:01 remaining in regulation.
For the third time this season, the Sirens and Frost needed extra hockey to determine a winner. The extra five minutes were thrilling as both teams had great looks, but no goals were scored. Micah Zandee-Hart laid a hard hit on Denisa Krizova which upped the physicality and tension between the teams. But for the second time this season, these two teams went to a shootout.
After a seven round shootout in which Alex Carpenter and Jessie Eldridge scored for New York, the Sirens got the 3-2 shootout win over the Frost.
Schroeder (28 saves), Fillier (one goal) and Coyne-Schofield (one goal, one assist) were named the three stars of the game. Fillier now leads the PWHL in points (11) and is tied for the league lead in goals as well.
Elle Hartje spoke about the tight games between the Sirens and Frost this season and if there is potentially a rivalry emerging. “We prescout every game, every team that we play so we just happen to have a lot of film on Minnesota and probably know their game a bit more intimately than other teams. But, in the nature of this league, it’s a pretty small group of teams, and so there’s a rivalry amongst everybody. We want to be the best team every time we play them.”
“We’ve left some things to be decided I guess in these games, I don’t know if it’s a rivalry more so with them, or just with our own selves. We want to win every single game, but we know in this league that’s not always going to happen, ” said Taylor Heise about Frost's performance against the Sirens this season. “We took a point - that’s not always what you want - but you want something when you come out of it, and I think when you look at it these games are always going to be close.”
The New York Sirens return to action on Jan. 25 when they take on the Toronto Sceptres at Scotiabank Arena with puck drop set for 2 PM EST.