LAVAL, QC – Laura Stacey scored twice and added an assist as the Montreal Victoire defeated the Seattle Torrent 4-1 on Thursday night, securing a three-way tie for first place in the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) standings with Boston and Minnesota.
Catherine Dubois scored her first goal of the season, opening the scoring for Montreal at 4:17 of the second period, assisted by Stacey. Skylar Irving also found the back of the net for the Victoire, whereas Ann-Renée Desbiens stopped 24 shots in the win. Kati Tabin recorded two assists.
The victory brings Montreal’s record to 10-4-1-5, matching the 39 points held by both Minnesota and Boston. Alex Carpenter scored the lone goal for Seattle, who fell to 5-1-2-12 and extended their road losing streak to seven games. Hannah Murphy made 19 saves for the Torrent.
Stacey’s second goal came with the net empty, sealing the victory for Montreal at 19:27 of the third period. Earlier, she had extended Montreal’s lead to 2-0 with a shorthanded breakaway goal at 13:02 of the second period. Carpenter had briefly cut the deficit to 2-1 at 7:56 of the third, capitalizing on a feed from Theresa Schafzahl, who was making her debut with Seattle after being acquired from the Boston Fleet on Monday. Irving responded just 64 seconds later, deflecting a point shot from Tabin to restore Montreal’s two-goal advantage.
The game marked the first appearance for Schafzahl with the Torrent, following a trade with Boston. Dubois filled in on Montreal’s top line in place of captain Marie-Philip Poulin, who is sidelined with a lower-body injury sustained during Sunday’s overtime loss to Boston. Poulin injured her right leg during a hit from Boston’s Shay Maloney, the same leg she injured during play at the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Montreal has now recorded at least one point in eight consecutive games (5-2-1-0), establishing a new team record and tying Boston for the longest such streak in the PWHL this season. The Victoire have become the first team in PWHL history to record 10 wins in regulation in each of the league’s three seasons.
Seattle and Montreal will both return to action this weekend. The Torrent will face Boston at the Tsongas Center on Saturday, while Montreal will travel to Winnipeg to take on Ottawa on Sunday as part of the PWHL Takeover Tour.
“I thought it was a great response from our group,” said Victoire Head Coach Kori Cheverie. “It’s an experienced team. They’ve been through a lot of situations and have a lot of games under their belts. Even though we didn’t want the last game to end the way it did, we were able to take a lot of positives from it. We were able to work on some areas we wanted to improve, specifically our five-on-six play.”
Montréal captain Laura Stacey commented on the team’s reaction following a difficult loss: “I think that was in all of our heads. We weren’t satisfied. It was a tough loss to swallow, but we said it was better that it happened now rather than later in the season. We learned from it and I think that’s exactly what we did. We went back to basics, had some great discussions, analyzed the video, and had another opportunity to learn tonight. I think we took a step forward. If we continue to take those steps in each game, whether it’s on slight details or bigger things like five-on-six, it makes a big difference.”
Seattle Head Coach Steve O’Rourke said of his team’s performance, “I think we competed well for 60 minutes and I liked the resilience of our group. In the third period, we came out and scored, we talked about coming out in waves, and we got that goal and continued to push. The resilience is there. We know we’re missing some key players, but everyone continues to work shift after shift, and we need to keep going in that direction.”
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