Two games left for PWHL New York players to prove themselves after loss to Toronto
Sitting in a private luxury box slightly more than an hour before his team would begin the first of its final three games of their inaugural season, Pascal Daoust acknowledged the obvious:
This was not the campaign the general manager or anyone associated with PWHL New York envisioned.
“Consistency was not there this year,” Daoust told Newsday prior to PWHL New York’s 6-2 loss to Toronto Sunday at UBS Arena. “We are where we are because of this and some other [reasons] and we’ll work on that during the offseason.”
New York fell to a league-worst 3-4-3-12 following its third straight loss. It has two games remaining this season: Tuesday night against Ottawa at the Prudential Center in Newark and Saturday afternoon’s regular-season finale against Minnesota at UBS Arena.
The contest against the league’s second-best team encapsulated much of what has gone wrong for New York, which entered the game having scored the fewest goals in the league (42) while allowing the most (57).
New York trailed 2-0 at the end of the first period due to two Sarah Nurse goals 11:21 apart. Nurse scored the first goal 1:05 into the contest by swatting Emma Maltais’ rebound past Abigail Levy (18 saves), and added a power play goal at 12:26 when Renata Fast’s shot from the left point deflected in off of her.
Alexa Vasko (3:56) and Natalie Spooner (5:27) scored second-period goals to extend Toronto’s advantage to 4-0. Nurse completed her hat trick 56 seconds into the third by poking the rebound of her initial shot past Levy. Rebecca Leslie’s second of the season at 5:19 increased the lead to 6-0.
Of Toronto’s six goals, five were scored within 15 feet of the net, while Spooner’s 16th of the season was a snap shot from between the top of the circles.
“We have to own all of the difficulties that we had today,” coach Howie Draper said afterwards.
Following Leslie’s goal, Levy was replaced by Lindsey Post. Post stopped all five shots she faced.
New York's Abby Roque spoiled Kirsten Campbell’s shutout bid when she tipped Ella Shelton’s point shot at 8:40 of the third. Brooke Hobson’s goal with 47.9 seconds left ended the scoring.
Even though New York had been eliminated from PWHL playoff contention following last Wednesday’s loss to league-best Montreal, there were stakes for the home team.
The most notable of which is putting itself in position to land the first overall pick in June’s draft. In February, the league announced that teams eliminated from playoff contention would still be required to earn as many points as possible in their final number of games to earn the No. 1 pick. The theory is that the system would cause the non-playoff teams to play meaningful games down the stretch.
“There [are] things on the table that we need to compete for,” Draper said.
As important as the first overall draft pick potentially could be for New York, so too will be the makeup of the roster. And what transpires in the season’s final games will factor heavily in Daoust’s decision-making heading into 2024-25.
“Some…[have] three games left to prove [to] us, prove [to] themselves, and to prove [to] any other teams that they belong in [the] league,” Daoust said. “This is their time.”
