Fleet’s Power Play Struggles Continue In Loss Vs. Victoire

The Fleet and Victoire met for the first time Monday night since Boston swept Montreal out of the playoffs last season with three overtime victories.

Montreal exacted revenge on Boston by defeating their rivals 3-1 north of the border at Place Bell. Unable to generate any type of offensive pressure against the Victoire, the Fleet dropped to 2-4-0 on the season.

Boston had its chances with five power play opportunities, including extended time to begin the third period after Montreal forward Catherine Dubois was called for a check to the head on Megan Keller. Dubois received a five-minute major and a game misconduct, but the Fleet were unable to get anything going on the man advantage. Montreal held Boston to one shot.

“It was terrible,” Fleet head coach Courtney Kessel told reporters in Montreal, per team-provided audio. “I think one of the hardest things to do is to come out to start a period on a power play. Sometimes, you don’t play with urgency because you think you’re up a player, and from there, it just went downhill.”

The Fleet entered the game leading the league with four power-play goals on 10 opportunities, but have dropped to 26.7%. The Victoire penalty kill improves to second in the league at 88.2% (15/17). 

“I think we fought the puck a little bit,” Kessel said of the power-play outage. “I think we tried to do much and we didn’t keep it simple like we had been doing the last five games.

The Fleet also surrendered a shorthanded goal to Kristin O’Neill in the second period. Montreal leads the PWHL with two jailbreak goals this season.

Boston captain Hilary Knight tallied her third goal of the season and has five points in six games for the Fleet, but understood her team’s shortcomings against Montreal.

“I think we needed to put the puck in the back of the net on our special teams, especially for the number of power plays that we got,” Knight said, per team-provided audio. “We were just short of executing. We’re going to take this back, work on it and it’s onto the next game.”

With the Fleet away from home on a six-game road trip, Kessel opted to give No. 1 goaltender Aerin Frankel the night off. Emma Söderberg got the nod for her first career start between the pipes against Montreal. Söderberg stopped 28 of 31 shots she faced in her season debut.

“We have three tremendous goaltenders, and we’re on the road here another nine days,” Kessel explained. “I think it’s a total of 17 days living out of our bags, so it’s going to be hard, but when you have three great goalies you might as well play them.

Boston has now lost three straight road games to open the season. The Fleet will look for their first road win on Thursday night when they travel to Minnesota to take on the defending Walter Cup champion Frost. Puck drop from Xcel Energy Center is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET, and you can watch all the action on NESN.

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