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Behind the Glass: It’s go time

The NWHL and CWHL playoffs are about to begin and the SDHL playoff finals are less than a week away

It’s time for another installment of Behind the Glass — the Ice Garden’s weekly column collecting stories, stats, trends, and observations from the world of professional women’s hockey.

  • Veteran defender Kiira Dosdall picked up her first point of the season in Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Beauts. She assisted on Rebecca Russo’s power play goal in the third period. The 2018-19 season was her least productive NWHL season to date.
  • After stopping 40 of the Beauts’ shots on Sunday, Metropolitan Riveters goaltender Katie Fitzgerald has a .923 save percentage in her last four starts. She started the season with an .836 save percentage in her first four games.
  • Kendall Coyne Schofield of the Minnesota Whitecaps was the only player to score multiple empty net goals this season. Interestingly enough, her first and last goals of the season were both empty netters./
  • Whitecaps forward Lauren Barnes scored her first and second career NWHL goals against the Connecticut Whale on Sunday. Prior to Sunday’s two-goal outburst, Barnes had played in eight games without getting a puck past a goaltender.
  • Former Whale goaltender Meeri Räisänen is finally back on the ice with Team Finland after rehabbing from the lower-body injury that prematurely ended her first season in the NWHL. Räisänen earned both of the Whale’s wins this season./
  • Hayley Scamurra is this season’s top scorer in the NWHL. Scamurra put up 20 points in 16 games for the Beauts. She also led all skaters with 17 points at even strength. On March 1, Scamurra was one of eight NWHLers named to Team USA for the 2019 IIHF Women’s World Championship in Finland.
  • The other seven NWHL players who will be representing Team USA in Finland are Coyne Schofield, Shelly Picard, Lee Stecklein, Emily Pfalzer, Dani Cameranesi, Amanda Kessel, and Hannah Brandt.
  • The Calgary Inferno will have home ice advantage over the Toronto Furies in the semifinal of the 2019 Clarkson Cup Playoffs. Calgary is 10-2-1 on home ice this year, but the Furies handed them both of their regulation losses in Alberta in the regular season.
  • Les Canadiennes de Montréal will have home ice advantage in the semifinals over the Markham Thunder. Montreal has gone 11-3-1 in their home jerseys this season. The most recent team to beat them in their own barn? Yep, you guessed it, the Thunder.
  • Rebecca Stenberg, 26, is hanging up her skates after the 2019 Swedish Championship. She will finish he SDHL career with 277 points in 263 career regular season games. Stenberg had 26 points in 34 games this year with Luleå Hockey/MSSK.
  • The 2019 Swedish Championship final is set: Linköping HC will meet Luleå for Game One of the final on Wednesday, March 13. Both teams swept their competitors in the semifinals./
  • Emma Nordin has nine goals and four assists in six postseason games for Luleå. Nordin has four more goals than the next highest-scoring active skater in this year’s Swedish Championship. She was also the top goal scorer of the regular season with 31 buried pucks in 36 games.
  • If Nordin has been the most impactful skater of the SDHL postseason, Linköping’s Eveliina Suonpää has been the most impactful goaltender. She has posted a .948 save percentage through over 423 minutes of playoff hockey./

Behind the Glass: Here come the playoffs

Data courtesy of thecwhl.com, nwhl.zone, cwhl-tracker.herokuapp.com, sdhl.se, and the author’s own tracking.

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