Courtesy of Yamini Dalal Photography/Sports Girls Club
The New York Sirens returned from the PWHL international break and began the second half of the 2024-25 season with a home game against the Boston Fleet. The push for the playoffs is on and the Sirens needed to get back in the win column.
Coming into this matchup, New York had lost three of their last five games and would be playing their second contest without Alex Carpenter as she is still out of the lineup with an upper-body injury. With the recent falter in their performance, New York sits in fourth place in the standings by a mere three points. Sarah Fillier continues to be a bright spot for the Sirens as she is still tied for the league lead in points (15) and enters this contest with an active six-game point streak (1G, 5A).
The Sirens face a tough task in the Fleet, a team who is tied for last in the standings by points (17), but have won three of their last five games. Hilary Knight leads the Fleet with 11 points, followed closely behind Megan Keller who has collected three goals and seven assists this season.
But the biggest focus of this game was the goaltending matchup. Boston started Aerin Frankel and Corinne Schroeder got the start for New York. Two of the very best goaltenders in the league going head to head was sure to be a treat to everyone in attendance.
The first period was heavily dominated by the Sirens as they peppered Frankel with shots and maintained consistent offensive zone pressure. Despite that, Jade Downie-Landry headed to the box for boarding at 8:05 which gave the Fleet the first power play of the game. New York did a great job killing that penalty though, keeping the score 0-0 early on. The teams continued to go back and forth all period until with mere seconds left, Susanna Tapani scored her sixth goal of the season to give the Fleet the 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
New York got an early power play opportunity to start the second period but couldn’t capitalize on the advantage. Boston got another opportunity on the power play at 12:22 in the period as Jaime Bourbonnais went to the box for tripping. After another power play for New York that passed by unsuccessfully, the score remained 1-0 Fleet with only 20 minutes left to play.
Courtesy of Yamini Dalal Photography/Sports Girls Club
The Fleet continued to build on their momentum in the third and it didn’t take long for them to find the back of the net again. Megan Keller scored her fourth goal of the season to extend Boston’s lead to 2-0 just over three minutes into the final frame. With that tally, Keller matched her goal total from last season in 10 fewer games (4G in 24 GP in 2024 regular season). About 10 minutes later, Jamie Lee Rattray scored her second of the season to make it 3-0 for the Fleet. Not long after Boston sealed the win with a goal from Shay Maloney to shut New York out 4-0.
It was the first time the Sirens had been shut out all season and the Fleet earned their first shutout win of the year as well. Frankel stopped all 25 shots to backstop her team to victory. The Sirens’ power play went 0-for-4 on the night and fell to a disappointing 7.7% at home which is by far the worst in the league.
Fleet Head Coach Courtney Kessel spoke on the team’s performance and what they did to earn the victory. “It’s really nice to see us be able to pay back Aerin for all the times she's kept us in these games and get a shutout for her. I think it's important from a mentality standpoint and it was great for us to put four goals in the back of the net. It’s something we've been focusing on, getting a little bit more offense, so it was really nice to see.”
Sirens Elizabeth Giguere had several great looks throughout the game but didn’t find the back of the net on any of them. “I got chances, and I was happy with the way that I played a little bit.” said Giguere. “At the same time though, I need to put it in the net, and I know it’s going to come, but when you look up and there’s a zero on the scoreboard – we can’t win games with zero goals. No matter how many chances I get, we must find ways to put the puck in the net.”
The Sirens are back in action on Saturday, Feb. 15 when they take on the Montreal Victoire at Place Bell. Puck drop is scheduled for 2 PM.
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