Takeaways: Late Rally Falls Short, Fleet Lose to Frost in OT, 4-3

The Boston Fleet rallied for a three-goal third period to force overtime, but it wasn't enough to beat the Minnesota Frost on Thursday night. They fell in overtime, 4-3, and extended their losing streak to three. The overtime loss point was their first road point of the season, but the Fleet remain winless with three games remaining on their current road trip.

Goal Rundown

Claire Butorac made it 1-0 in the second period after the puck bobbled around before squeaking through Aerin Frankel.

Just 43 seconds later, Brooke Bryant spun off Megan Keller and beat Frankel to make it 2-0 Minnesota.

Hilary Knight made it 2-1 in the third period after she corralled a Megan Keller rebound and sent it past a sprawling Nicole Hensley. It was Knight’s fourth goal of the season, and she is now in a three-way tie with Minnesota's Britta Curl-Salemme and New York's Alex Carpenter for the league lead.

2:30 later, Brooke McQuigge reinstated the Frost two-goal lead with a rebound goal of her own on the power play.

Late in the period, Susanna Tapani drew a roughing penalty against Lee Stecklein and scored on the ensuing power play with a great deke. Just 49 seconds later, she beat Hensley on a clean shot to tie the game

The game headed into a thrilling overtime, with both teams getting numerous great chances. Finally, Britta Curl-Salemme got a breakaway and beat Frankel to secure her team the extra point with just 13 seconds remaining in overtime. The goal was Curl-Salemme's fourth of the season and moved her into the current three-way tie for the league lead.

In goal, Frankel made 18 saves in the loss while Hensley made 25 for the win.

Takeaways

1. Stay out of the box.

This is the fifth straight game I’ve mentioned discipline as a problem in my takeaways, so I don’t have much to say anymore. Just because they’re killing most of the penalties doesn’t mean they aren’t a problem. The Frost had the league’s best power play heading into the game and they gave them five chances on it. That’s time that would've been much better spent trying to generate offense than killing a penalty. Penalties are going to happen in a game, but they shouldn't be this frequent. Something has to give.

2. For the first time this season, the Fleet outshot their opponent. However, they still need to shoot more.

One small win from the game tonight is the Fleet managed to outshoot the Frost. That’s not a huge stretch considering the Frost managed just 22 shots, but it’s something to build on. However, while they got a few chances from the slot and around the crease, most of their shots were not overly dangerous. 

Quality is important in the PWHL, so while finally outshooting an opponent is a step in the right direction, there’s still work to do. The Fleet also need to generate more shots, as they have yet to produce 30 in a game. While again, quality is more important than quantity in many instances, quantity is still important. A higher quantity of shots probably means you’re getting to more rebounds and overall getting more dangerous looks, so the Fleet must find another gear and strike a good balance between the two.

3. The Fleet must do a better job of clearing out the front of the net. 

As an example of how quality shots are often better than quantity, here's Minnesota’s shot chart from last night.

While Minnesota deserves some credit for going to the dirty areas that much, there’s no reason they should have gotten 13 shots from the slot or just outside it, especially when they only managed 22 on the night. Shots aside, there was frequently a lot of traffic out in front of Frankel whenever Minnesota was on the attack. Boston needed to do a much better job of clearing out the front of the net, plain and simple.

4. Overall, Boston beat themselves in a winnable game.

The Frost came into the night missing Sophie Jaques, Dominique Petrie, and Taylor Heise (plus Maddie Rooney, although head coach Ken Klee told broadcasters pregame it likely would've been Hensley's net anyway). They lost Grace Zumwinkle to injury after she played just 4:35. This was a winnable game, but the Fleet beat themselves with the penalties, defensive lapses, and a general lack of sustained offensive pressure. On one hand, it was great to see them fight back late and get a point, but they wouldn’t have had to do that if they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot earlier on. These are points they desperately needed to get against such a shorthanded team.

The Fleet are back in action Sunday afternoon when they take on the Montréal Victoire in the first game of the PWHL Takeover Tour. Puck drop is set for 4 p.m. ET at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, WA, and you can find the game on NESN, TSN, RDS, the PWHL Youtube Channel, and thepwhl.com.