From Drought to Deluge: Montréal Victoire Weathers Franchise's First Back-to-Back Games

Coming off their bye week, Montréal hosted the Ottawa Charge and the Toronto Sceptres in the first back-to-back set of games in team history. The Victoire faced nine days without games, and then two games in two days against teams hungry for points. Both of the matches being at home gave fans the opportunity to watch their team battling through a unique situation. How did the Victoire handle the pressure?

Game 1: Ottawa Charge

The Charge were the last team the Victoire played, earning a 2-1 victory in Québec City on the strength of their power play. But after all that time off, the Victoire came out a little flat against them, getting out-run and out-battled by Ottawa in the first period. The score was 1-0 and shots were 15 to 6 for the Charge after 20.

Head Coach Kori Cheverie spoke about the adjustment the team had to make after the tough first period, saying, “It kind of had to be handled with a little bit of care because it was to be expected, and I know sometimes the players may not think that that's to be expected." She credited a strong penalty kill at the end of the first for bringing energy to the team.

That energy was more than apparent in the second period. Montréal looked back to their pre-break ways and it was quickly reflected in the score. Although the Victoire’s first power play didn’t convert, captain Marie-Philip Poulin brought the Victoire back to even just a minute later with a heavy one-timer on a two-on-one. Jennifer Gardiner provided the set-up and the best description of the goal:

"I asked if there was a shot clock in the net for that one because I don't think anybody saw it, we just heard it and knew that it went in with the crowd cheering."

Gardiner tallied a beauty of her own off a seeing-eye pass from Amanda Boulier. Streaking up the slot, she sniped a shot over the shoulder of Ottawa’s Gwyneth Philips, who came far out of her crease to challenge Gardiner.

Only three minutes later, the pair connected again on the power play. Gardiner handed off the puck to Poulin, who had time and space to place a shot perfectly in the far corner.

Ottawa responded by pulling Gwyneth Philips.

"I thought that that goal turned the tides of the entire game,” Cheverie said later of Poulin’s second goal. “For Philips obviously she came out of the game, but I thought she played really well and the three shots that did beat her were perfectly placed shots."

The second period seemed like it was specifically designed to destroy the Charge’s hopes. First, the Victoire scored within a minute of an Ottawa power play concluding. Gardiner’s goal came thirty seconds after the end of a Victoire power play. Poulin’s second goal came on the power play. It seemed like Ottawa couldn’t gain the upper hand in any situation.

To their credit, the Charge fought for the whole game, but the Victoire were humming and they controlled the second and the third. Poulin’s empty net goal was just some salt for the wounds. 

You can’t depend on a hat trick every night, not even from Captain Clutch, and while the first game of this brace was coming off a break, the second game would be skated on tired legs. After the game, Cheverie discussed the dual challenges the Victoire were facing and how they hoped to handle them:

"The layoff certainly didn't help and we saw that in the first period, that's for sure. But it's something mentally that we've been talking about all week, kind of priming ourselves for how hard that could be or how challenging that could be…
“I know a lot of these players have played back to back nights over their career, certainly probably not at this pace and this level, and I think that tonight we had to be a little bit strategic having that in mind as well. Tonight was really really important for us to try and get those three points, and going into tomorrow we'll continue to try and strategize to beat Toronto."

Game 2: Toronto Sceptres

The second game of the back-to-back opened with the surprise that Laura Stacey was listed as the thirteenth forward for Montréal. She hadn’t played in over two weeks due to a lower body injury sustained against Minnesota on January 12. The Victoire also made the choice to start Elaine Chuli for her first game since January 12 and have Sandra Abstreiter dress as back-up, giving Ann-Renée Desbiens a full night off after she backstopped the team against Ottawa.

Coming off two regulation losses and a shootout loss two nights prior, the Sceptres were hungry for points and they showed it with their play. They had the step on the Victoire in the first period, winning physical battles along the boards and in front of the net. They struck first with a power play goal, and though the Victoire equalized before the first period was over, the ice still felt tilted toward the visitors.

Montréal went up one in the second thanks to a defensive error from Toronto, but the Sceptres drew three penalties in the second period, converting on one. The Victoire took a few bad penalties and the Sceptres kept winning foot races. Despite the fatigue, the Victoire were starting to fall into their usual rhythms, giving the game a more even feel, largely thanks to Laura Stacey. She was constantly being rotated into the lineup in different situations and with different lines, and she provided much-needed spark and speed wherever she went. Stacey had the primary assist on both of the game’s first goals, and in the third period, she potted a beauty of her own.

With a lead midway through the third and the crowd on their side, the Victoire seemed to have the game in control. When Sarah Nurse stole a puck and delivered it to Daryl Watts in front of the net for a quick goal, it was a shock.

The last three and a half minutes of the game passed with no score, despite a Montréal power play, and the game went to overtime, and then to the shootout.

Stacey was the first shooter, and she made it look easy with a fivehole shot on Kristen Campbell.

Toronto’s Julia Gosling tied things up with a fivehole goal on Elaine Chuli. Daryl Watts nearly put the Sceptres ahead, but her wrister went off the crossbar behind Chuli. The game was decided when Poulin put the puck behind Campbell with a high back-hand shot, and Toronto was unable to match.

After the game, Stacey said that she didn’t know whether she would have medical clearance to play until that morning and only got a brief skate in before the game.

"Maybe it was a little early [for me to come back], maybe it wasn't, you never really know."

In retrospect, it seems like she was pretty capable. Whether it was in the Montréal coaching staff’s plans to play Stacey over 20 minutes, or whether they lucked into the opportunity, she was the hero the Victoire needed coming into a difficult match-up. She was everywhere, from both special teams to springing out of the penalty box on a breakaway.

“I don’t think you believed for a second that she was going to be the thirteenth forward,” Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan joked after the game. “...She’s not a thirteenth forward.”

Cheverie addressed the difficulty of the back-to-back and the way the team fought through it:

"We knew that this was going to be more challenging and you guys saw that it was a lot more challenging fatigue-wise, mentally and physically, emotionally, in every kind of way. Tonight was about 'find a way to find a way.' We knew it wasn't going to be easy and we wanted to put our best foot forward against Ottawa, we wanted to put our best foot forward against Toronto, and to come out with five out of six [points], we're pretty satisfied with that."

After a few days of much-needed rest, the Victoire will play the New York Sirens on Sunday in their final game before the international break.