The New York Sirens' Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Slump

When the final buzzer sounded at Tsongas Center on March 5, the Sirens reached a grim milestone of nine straight losses, stubbornly keeping them last in the league. They've lost to nearly the entire league: Boston five times, Montréal twice, and Toronto and Ottawa once each. And these games haven’t tended to be especially close—the Sirens have lost five games in this recent slump by at least three goals.

So what’s going wrong? The Sirens aren’t scoring enough, and when the goals do come, they’re too late. The power play isn’t converting, especially at home, and the penalty kill still gives up goals on about one in five power plays. And though the goalies try their best to stop the bleeding, they can’t make up for the gaps in offensive firepower.

But all is not lost—the return of Alex Carpenter on February 19 sparked a revival of the team's offensive firepower, and they looked like a much better team in their last two games. If the Sirens can get back to the powerhouse team they were in December, or even the flashes of brilliance they showed in January, they can still be a convincing playoff contender.

What's going wrong?

The offense just isn't scoring enough.

It’s not that the Sirens can’t score—they’ve scored in every game but one, when they played Boston on February 12. But if there’s a common thread in how they’ve played over this recent slump, it’s that the goals aren’t coming at the right time. On February 19, for example, it took the Sirens nearly 50 minutes before they notched their first goal; by then, Boston had scored three, and less than a minute later, they knocked in their fourth.

There's a larger issue here: the Sirens have a tendency to allow spurts of opposing goals before they’re able to respond, if at all. On February 17, the Sirens and the Fleet traded initial goals, but the Fleet scored three more goals in the second and third periods to secure the win. The game before, the Sirens allowed the Victoire to score four unanswered goals in the first period before they managed to score even one goal. And on February 12, the Sirens were shut out for the first time this season. The offense looks smoother now—they put up four goals against Ottawa on February 26, and two goals against Boston on their most recent game on March 5. But they're still not winning.

A key contributor to the Sirens' offensive struggles, at least until she returned on February 19, was the absence of Alex Carpenter, their most effective goal scorer on average. Carpenter has amassed eight goals—eighth-highest in the league—and seven assists in 17 games. The next leading goal scorer for the Sirens, Sarah Fillier, has scored eight goals over 21 games. Carpenter is also an efficient shooter: over a fifth of her shots resulted in goals. So when the Sirens lost Carpenter—their most powerful offensive weapon—for several games, they faced a severe disadvantage, and they didn't seem to adapt easily to their new reality.

February 19th's game highlighted the flaws in how the Sirens handled their weakened offense. In Carpenter's absence, it's been Eldridge and Sarah Fillier who've served as the Sirens' offensive foundation. That's a lot to put on only two players, as talented as they are, and it shows. The Sirens often looked stuck in their defensive zone, and that translated to a lack of chances—they were outshot 10-5 in the first period and 15-7 in the second. It wasn't until the third period, during which the Sirens managed to muster up 12 shots, that they finally scored their first goal. When the team is occupied with defending, they don't get the opportunity to generate the offensive firepower they need to be a real threat. Yes, they can score, but they're not able to make opportunities happen, and with limited chances come limited goals.

To their credit, the Sirens seem to realize that things aren't working. When they hit the ice for their February 23rd game against the Fleet, they looked like a wildly different team than the one that's lost to Boston three times in as many weeks. They outshot the Fleet 14-9 in the first period, and it paid off—Sarah Fillier and Jessie Eldridge each converted, and even though Loren Gabel knocked one in too, New York looked in control. It took the Fleet 65 minutes and a shootout to send the Sirens home with a loss, a much better showing for the Sirens than getting shut out 4-0 on February 12 and easily defeated 4-1 on February 17.

The Sirens’ efforts to improve have continued. They put up four goals against Ottawa on February 26 to force overtime, and even in their loss against Boston on March 5, they scored twice. They looked much more like the confident team they were in parts of December and January, and that's a great sign for the rest of the season.

The special teams are struggling at home.

The Sirens' lack of offensive opportunities and their issues with scoring are especially clear in their special teams operations. Their power play currently ranks second in the league, converting on 18.9% of their chances. But that's deceptive, because though the power play unit converts around three in every 10 chances while away, they only convert about 8% of power plays at home. That's last in the league, half that of the fifth-ranked Montréal Victoire and way behind the Sceptres' 33%. It's not a recipe for success when a team seems to score more often when they're off the power play instead of on it.

So what's going wrong? The Sirens' power play, at least at home, seems hesitant. They rely on passing the puck around and trying to make a clear shot happen, but that's not easy to do. And when a player can't get that open lane, they seem to prefer to keep passing rather than take an imperfect shot. On one hand, that tactical approach makes sense—up one player, the team has more flexibility, and relying on passes to catch the penalty kill off guard can absolutely work. After all, the Sirens' power play is effective when they're away, so they've found success. But too often, at least at home, power plays end with one shot on goal or none at all. That's not enough to give the team a real chance at scoring. Even if the power play at home converted twice as often (which would still be half their performance when they're away), that could be just what the Sirens need to break this streak of allowing their opponents to score in bursts.

The goalies aren't really the main problem.

The goalies are trying, and honestly, they're keeping these games closer than it might seem. Kayle Osborne's taken eight of the Sirens' games and put up solid all-around performances: she has the eighth-best goals allowed average of 2.30, and she's sixth best in save percentage, at 0.927. Corinne Schroeder's right up there with her—though she's let in a slightly worse 2.75 goals on average, she still saves around 91% of the shots she faces. Neither member of what’s become the Sirens' tandem is putting up alarmingly bad numbers; in fact, considering that they've faced barrages of shots from their opponents, these performances are very respectable. Yes, sometimes they allow four goals (or more) in a game. But that reflects more on the Sirens' offensive struggles and the overworked defense than larger issues with the goalies.

What should the Sirens do differently?

For all their recent struggles, the Sirens are showing plenty of hopeful signs. Even though their most recent game led to a loss, they have a lot to be proud of. They showed that they can take control of a game, get quality shots on goal, and force their opponents to work for every goal. The Sirens ultimately outshot the Fleet 40-20, and though shot count is a crude metric to judge a team by, they seemed much more in control than in past games. They also showed more discipline than in the past, scoring on one of their two power plays. It's encouraging to see meaningful improvement after just a few days.

The Sirens do still have plenty of room for improvement, though. They still rely heavily on Alex Carpenter, Jessie Eldridge, and Sarah Fillier to score their goals. Relying on them can work—they're three incredibly gifted players—but if the Sirens want to pose a consistent offensive threat, they have to get their other forwards to score.

Noora Tulus, for example, is historically an offensive powerhouse. She won a silver medal with Team Finland in the 2019 IIHF Women's World Championship and bronze medals at four other World Championships, most recently in 2024. She has two Olympic bronze medals and has won the SDHL championship seven times with Luleå HF. In the 2023-2024 SDHL season, she racked up 39 assists and 61 points overall, the most in the league. But so far in her 21 games this season, she's gotten more penalty minutes (six) than points (two, from one goal and one assist). And on February 23, she hit the ice for only about three and a half minutes. Her time on ice has increased, and she spent 10 minutes on the ice last game. But overall, she's not getting enough time to work her offensive magic.

The Sirens could also use more help from Elizabeth Giguère and Chloe Aurard. Both players have had relatively quiet seasons this year with the Sirens, and they had similarly slow seasons last year too. But before joining the Sirens, Giguère played a key set-up role for the Boston Pride. In 2022-2023, she earned 16 assists and scored six goals of her own. She's only earned one goal and one assist so far this season, and last season, she managed three goals and one assist. Even if Giguère isn't going to be a prolific goal scorer, she could be a huge help to the Sirens if she can get back to that playmaker role she was excellent at for the Pride. And while her time on ice has increased from around five and a half minutes on February 23 to about 10 minutes in the Sirens' last game, her limited role this season also significantly narrows her paths to being an impactful playmaker.

Aurard's followed a similar path: she's only earned a handful of points this season and last season, but during her last year at Northeastern University in 2022-2023, she put up a dominating performance, with 20 goals and 34 assists over 38 games. The transition from college hockey to professional hockey is always enormously challenging, and it's likely not realistic to expect that same performance now. But if the Sirens can get more offensive power out of her, it could only help. In the meantime, though, she's been spending most of her games sitting on the bench. Hopefully, the Sirens can figure out how to get her going again—even if she'll still play a limited role, it would help to have another scoring threat on the lower lines.

Finally, the Sirens should try to patch up some of the defensive weaknesses that have plagued them in recent games. The team hasn't really been able to shut down their opponents' offenses recently. While some of that is on the goalies, they're still putting up solid performances, and the defense could do more to help them out. From watching these games, the defense sometimes just can't keep up—they've left people open for too long or have trouble getting the puck out of their zone and giving their goalies a chance to breathe. However, just like with the offense, there are signs of hope. The defense has shown what it can do when it's focused and disciplined: on February 26, they played a key role in keeping the Sirens in the game, helping Corinne Schroeder hold off the often vicious Ottawa offense through the entire third period and OT. They look much stronger than they have in the past, and hopefully, they can be a consistent backstop to whoever's in net.

Overall, the Sirens are absolutely not out of it yet. There are plenty of games left, and the team's flashes of brilliance show—even when the standings don't—how they're absolutely still a threatening team. The Sirens don't need exceptional performances from all six skaters, but they do need everyone to be consistently solid, and that's been missing. The Sirens' recent performances have shown what the team can do when the players are focused and at their best. And even with their March 5 loss, this is hopefully a turning point for the Sirens to face their nine remaining games as a stronger and more dangerous team.