The Boston Fleet rode the strong goaltending of netminder Aerin Frankel to take two crucial points at the PWHL Takeover Tour stop in Buffalo, New York at the KeyBank Center. Susanna Tapani scored the shootout winner in the 3-2 victory over the New York Sirens.
“She’s the best goalie in the world,” said Boston head coach Courtney Kessel of Frankel’s 39 save perfomance. “Countless times she’s kept us in games. Kept us rolling through playoffs last year, facing so many shots. She’s just so steady–– never too high, never too low. You always get the same effort from her in practice and she’s a tremendous goalie leader as well for all three of our national goalies. The ability for them to push each other in every single practice, I think is what puts our goalies at the top.”
Frankel not only made 39 saves, she also stopped all five New York attempts in the shootout. In regulation, Boston got goals from Loren Gabel and Amanda Pelkey, while the New York Sirens managed to beat Frankel twice on goals by Sarah Fillier and Jessie Eldridge.
The win leapfrogged the Boston Fleet into third in the PWHL’s standings. New York remains in sixth place looking at the playoff race from the outside. The team felt they played good hockey in Buffalo, but the results remain inconsistent.
“I thought we saw a lot of what we want Sirens hockey to be today,” said Fillier. “We are super physical, hard to play against so there’s a lot of good things to take–– and we got a point out of it. The crowd was awesome of course and it was our first Takeover Tour; to get a piece of it and help grow our game in our league, it’s been a lot of fun.”
“We were a hard team to play against today and I think there’s more examples tonight of some things we can continue to build on,” said Sirens head coach Greg Fargo. “Moving forward, starting with our effort from start to finish, we won’t hang our heads on this one.”
New York is back in action on February 26 while Boston is off until March 1.
