PHF

Behind the Glass: Cornine scores number nine and Savolainen gets a hatty

The Pride remain undefeated in the NWHL and Ronja Savolainen is the SDHL’s new leading goal-scorer among D

Behind the Glass is our weekly column collecting stories, stats, trends, and thoughts from the world of professional women’s hockey.

Note: the ZhHL is on a break and won’t return until mid-January, so they will be omitted from the next few editions of Behind the Glass.

NWHL

Lost in the Boston Pride’s 8-3 roasting of the Metropolitan Riveters on Saturday, Dec. 7 was backup goaltender Dana DeMartino posting a shutout in the third period against Boston, with eight saves. She’s made two appearances in relief this season but has yet to start a game.
Center Kendall Cornine had back-to-back two-goal games for the Riveters last weekend. Cornine now has nine goals in her first nine games in the NWHL and — excluding Bray Ketchum’s 10-goal year in the NWHL’s inaugural season — now holds the franchise record for goals in a season by a newcomer.
Riveters captain Madison Packer has registered a point in all nine games the Riveters have played in this season. The same is true of Kate Leary in the eight games that she has played. Packer recorded her first multi-point game since Oct. 12 in the Riveters 3-2 win over the Whale on Sunday./

Pride forward Emily Fluke had four assists in the Pride’s 8-3 win over the Riveters on Saturday. Fluke now has 10 assists in 10 games with the Pride this season in addition to five goals. She has six assists in her last two games.
Whale forwards Kayla Meneghin and Emma Vlasic are the only two skaters on their team with an average Game Score north of 1.0 GS/GP. The Pride, on the other hand, have nine different skaters averaging at least 1.0 GS/GP.
Through the first 11 games of the 2019-20 NWHL season, the Pride are averaging 64.10 KSt/60 (Steady per 60 minutes); the Whitecaps are Boston’s closest competitor with a 50.44 KSt/60 and Buffalo is at the bottom of the category with a 35.7 KSt/60./

Goaltender Minatsu Murase had a 28-save shutout against AIK on Dec. 7. Murase now has a .939 save percentage and the second-best GAA in the league (1.54). Murase, 24, has earned six wins this season.
Defender Ronja Savolainen had a hat trick in Luleå Hockey/MSSK’s 6-1 win over SDE on Dec. 6. Savolainen now leads all SDHL defenders with 10 goals in 20 GP. She has 20 points on the season and is second only to teammate Jenni Hiirikoski (136) in SOG among defenders (99).
Saana Valkama had a hat trick of her own against Göteborg on Dec. 7. Thanks to that three-goal performance she’s now Linköping’s leading goal-scorer with six goals in 22 games this season. This is Valkama’s first season in the SDHL. She spent the last four seasons playing hockey at the University of Vermont where she piled up 64 points in in 135 games.
Fanny Rask scored her seventh and eighth goals of the season for AIK against MODO on Dec. 6. Rask’s second goal of the game tied the game up. Rask is one of three skaters on AIK leading the team with eight goals this season, the other two are Sabina Küller and Lisa Johansson. /

All data courtesy of sdhl.se, stats.swehockey.se, nwhl.zone, sdhl.se, whl.khl.ru, EliteProspects.com, and the author’s own tracking.

Disclosure: the author of this piece is currently employed by the NWHL.