Victoire Vibe Vol. 2.5

The Victoire have been winning more games than they've been losing recently, but they no longer look like the team that went on a six-game run in January and February. What has gone wrong, and what do they need to work on in their final ten games of the season?

What hasn’t been working?

After an excellent game coming back from their week off, where the team saw three goals from the bottom six, depth scoring has dried up. Laura Stacey has had three goals, Marie-Philip Poulin has had three goals, Jennifer Gardiner has had one goal, and defender Kati Tabin had two against Boston. That’s it.

A lot of factors contribute to this. The team dealt with a number of players coming in and out of the lineup due to illness, and from the looks of it, even the players hearty enough to be in games weren’t playing at 100%. The line shuffling that resulted upset some of the chemistry that had been developing on new lines, and the injury to Alexandra Labelle required that things were moved around further.

As Coach Cheverie said after the March 4 game against the Frost, “As soon as you change one player it’s a brand new team.” The Victoire have iced several ‘brand new teams’ in the last few weeks. While I feel that the coaching staff has been responsible in terms of allowing players time to settle in to new combinations, it doesn’t feel like they’ve yet found the lines that will bring out this team’s best potential.

Sadly, I must return the power play to the ‘not working’ section. After a stylistic adjustment earlier in the season paid dividends, the Victoire appears to have shifted back towards their previous strategy, which involved more passing in a circle and taking shots from the point. I’m not sure what prompted this change– perhaps the coaching staff felt that other teams had cottoned on to their new system?– but it isn’t working. Again. Like it didn’t work last year, or at the start of this season.

It is also time to discuss that Montréal's second line has not been working. It hasn’t been working all season, and it didn’t work particularly well last season either. The second line does not produce goals, and it doesn’t do a notable job of driving play up the ice. Kristin O’Neill has a -10 on the season, by far the worst plus/minus on the Victoire. League-wide, New York Sirens players claim seven of the eight worst plus/minus ratings in the league; the eighth is O’Neill. O’Neill has one goal– a shorthanded marker– and three assists on the season, all of which came in the first seven games.

O’Neill’s most common linemates have been Abby Boreen and Lina Ljungblom. While Boreen has put up 12 points so far this season, only two of them have come while playing with O’Neill at even strength, and she has not registered a point in the last six games. The last time Boreen recorded a point with the second line was on January 5. Meanwhile, Ljungblom’s best offensive outputs have occurred while playing with the fourth line, and while playing beside O’Neill and Laura Stacey, a line which only spent two games together.

O’Neill has been a great player for Team Canada and has shown moments of brilliance this season. She has the third-most faceoff wins in the league and her tenacity has been impressive. But something is not clicking. Whether it’s doing even more linemate shuffling, or whether it’s trying her out at a different role, the black hole of the second line is something the Victoire needs to address. Depth scoring and elite talent have kept the goals coming this season, but at some point your second line needs to start putting up points.

(Now that I’ve put this in print, so to speak, I expect the second line will start potting goals at an astonishing pace. I look forward to it.)

What has been working?

As I mentioned earlier, Poulin and Stacey have been the team’s biggest offensive contributors during the last stretch. Poulin’s three goals and three assists, along with her shootout winner against the Frost, have boosted her case in the MVP race, but Stacey has also had three and three in the same period, notably her diving overtime winner at the Bell Centre. Their finishing ability has allowed this team to keep a comfortable cushion in the standings while the coaching staff searches for chemistry in the other lines.

Ann-Renée Desbiens is another person who deserves credit during this stretch. After the shootout win against the Frost, Coach Cheverie said, “When you don’t have your best game, you need other people to step up, and Ann’s been doing that.” With Elaine Chuli one of the players who was ill after the break, Desbiens maintained her impressive stretch of allowing no more than two goals in a game, which dates back to December 28. She will be a tough one to beat in the Goaltender of the Year conversation.

During the stretch of illness, Montréal's faced opponents with different styles of play. They were shut out by a fast and skilled team in the Frost, and managed to stay on top of two very physical teams in the Sceptres and the Fleet. The regulation loss to Ottawa stands out to me; Montréal has been the better team in their match-ups this season and the loss to the Charge shows just how out-of-sorts the Victoire were at that time. Still, the fact that they lost by an even-strength goal and an empty netter shows how close they were able to keep things despite it probably being the low point of the season in terms of the strength of the lineup.

That speaks to the structure this team maintains. It keeps them from getting run over even on nights when they’re not at their best and other teams have a step on them. It means that the team has a high floor: you’re rarely going to see a truly bad game.

Montréal does a lot of joint plays where one player will take the body of an opponent, trusting that a teammate will be right behind them to pick up the puck. They do a good job of running soft picks in the defensive zone to shield puck carriers. They have several skilled puck-moving defenders who have patience and high IQ, sending the puck up to players who have options. Both forwards and defenders show skill in moving through the neutral zone in a coordinated way and spacing the zone so they can’t be easily hemmed in. All of this means that they are very strong in terms of getting the puck out of their own zone and toward their opponent’s zone. Even in games where the Victoire have been on the back foot and unable to establish offensive zone time, they keep the tide moving in that direction.

While Montréal's defenders are not afraid to make offensive gambits, it’s this dedication to defense that stands out. Anna Wilgren, Mariah Keopple, and Erin Ambrose lead the league in blocked shots. Cayla Barnes and Kati Tabin are in the top ten, and Amanda Boulier is in the top five of blocks per 60 after missing games due to injury. That kind of play takes a load off your goalies and helps create chances going up the ice. The Victoire’s defenders are the backbone of this team.

They say defense wins championships, and it’s not hard to imagine that this blueline could do just that.

Vibe check

“We can’t keep going at the pace we’ve been going in terms of only one line scoring. It won’t put us in a good space for playoffs, and the players know that.”
- Head Coach Kori Cheverie after a 4-0 shutout to the Minnesota Frost

What’s next?

The Victoire will continue their road trip, playing Boston at Agganis Arena, then dipping down to face New York before meeting the Fleet again at their home rink in Lowell. Montréal typically faces off well against these teams, so this could be a chance to bank more points, but if the Victoire stumble, they do have some padding in the standings.