Takeaways: Fleet Win Penalty Palooza Over Sirens in the Shootout, 3-2

The 5,908 fans who braved the weather to spend their Friday night at the Tsongas Center did not leave disappointed last night. The Boston Fleet and New York Sirens battled it out in an exciting game that featured 15 penalties before ending in a 3-2 Fleet shootout victory.

Goal Rundown

Alina Müller kicked off the scoring at 19:47 with a beautiful jailbreak goal while practically wearing New York’s Sarah Fillier.

Hannah Bilka extended the Fleet’s lead early in the third, sniping one through traffic and past Corinne Schroeder at 2:48.

Just 12 seconds after they had a goal wiped off the board, Ella Shelton potted one for the Sirens by finishing a Sarah Fillier drive at 14:36.

3:23 later and with Schroeder pulled for the extra attacker, Shelton fired another past Aerin Frankel to tie the game. Former Fleet forward Taylor Girard picked up the secondary assist for her first point with her new team.

The teams headed to 3v3 overtime, but that wasn’t enough. So, the Tsongas Center saw its first PWHL shootout. Müller and Hilary Knight scored in the first two rounds for the Fleet, while Frankel shut the door on all four attempts she faced.

In goal, Frankel made 25 saves for the win, while Schroeder made 37 in the loss.

Takeaways

1. For whatever reason, these teams really seem to hate each other.

Both meetings between the Fleet and Sirens this season have been riddled with penalties. In the first back on December 8, they combined for nine minor penalties (six for the Fleet and three for the Sirens). Last night, they combined for 14 (seven apiece) while the Sirens' Jade Downie-Landry also picked up a double minor for spearing. Per the league's recap, it was the most penalized game in PWHL history.

“I'm not sure why it was feisty,” Boston head coach Courtney Kessel said postgame. “I mean, I think it's tough to manage the energy, especially the highs and lows...but it seemed like… two teams that are looking for some points, and we're battling for the playoff spot already, right? You can't wait until the end of the year to worry about battling for a playoff spot. So I think you have two teams going head to head that both need points and so I think that's where the physicality comes from.”

2. Frankel crosses 1000 saves.

Just before the shootout began, the Fleet announced that Frankel was the first goaltender in PWHL history to make 1000 saves (regular season and playoffs). She now sits at 1,001 through 36 games. The closest netminder to her? Toronto’s Kristen Campbell with 868 (also in 36 games), per EliteProspects.

Notably, 141 of Frankel’s saves came from the three marathon Montréal playoff games, and she had 248 total through eight playoff games. She sits fourth in regular season saves behind Ottawa’s Emerance Maschmeyer (856) and New York’s Corinne Schroeder (755) and Campbell (742). Still, it’s both a reflection of how good she is and how much Boston has relied on her to cover up their flaws that she’s the first goaltender to hit this milestone.

“The way she shows up day in and day out, and she’s pretty ‘steady-Eddy,’ she’s never too high, never too low, I think it’s huge for whatever kind of moment you are going to face in these games because they seem to be crazy every night," Kessel said. "The parity across this league is incredible, and she spoke about taking care of her body, [and] I think that is a huge part of learning what it is like to be a professional athlete. Being ready to go when you get the nod to go in, and we have seen her show up night in and night out. I don’t know if 1,000 shots against is good for our defense, but we know that Franks is going to show up for us every night.” 

3. The Fleet finally got a lot of shots, but few were quality. 

The Fleet got their highest shot total of the season last night, peppering Schroeder with 38. Their previous season-high was 31, set on January 5 at Montréal. However, they didn’t manage any from in front of the crease, and just three were from within the slot (all of which were right by the hash marks). That’s not a great strategy. It worked last night, but the Sirens were also down several players (most notably Alex Carpenter, who is second on the team in points), and overall didn’t play great until the back half of the third period. As I’ve said several times, quality is often better than quantity, so while finally getting a high volume is nice, they need to work on getting a lot more quality shots.

4. The Fleet drew their third-largest crowd ever in their first Friday game.

For the first time, the Fleet played a Friday game at the Tsongas Center, and the 5,908 fans in attendance were good for third-best at Tsongas for the Fleet. Only the final regular-season game last season (5,964) and Game 5 of the Walter Cup Finals (6,309) had higher attendance, although all three were considered sell-outs. Their previous season high was 4,003 on Sunday, December 8, also against the Sirens and the only weekend home game so far. While the fans are typically impressively loud regardless of their numbers, last night’s crowd had the blessing of size and boisterousness, and the players felt it.

“We felt the energy,” Müller said. “It's a big difference when the building is loud and you know you have the whole stadium behind you. It's super fun. And again, it's an extra push and [you] just find that extra energy in yourself and you want to make them happy and to cheer on for goals.”

I’ll have more thoughts on the Fleet’s attendance in a notebook this week, but seeing such a great crowd last night was heartening.

The PWHL pauses for its second international break starting Sunday night. The Fleet will return to action on February 12 when they travel to the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ for a rematch with the Sirens at 7 p.m. ET. You can find the game on NESN, MSGSN2, NESN, the PWHL Youtube Channel, and thepwhl.com.