The Montreal Victoire are the first PWHL team to clinch a spot in the 2024-25 PWHL playoffs. They haven’t however, locked up top spot in the league as the Toronto Sceptres also continued their climb.
Montreal secured their playoff spot with a convincing 4-1 win over the Minnesota Frost, while the Toronto Sceptres continued to chase the PWHL’s top team beating the Boston Fleet 4-2.
Frost Have No Answer For Poulin And Stacey
Laura Stacey and Marie-Philip Poulin both scored a pair of goals for the Montreal Victoire as they beat the Minnesota Frost 4-1 on the road. Stacey finished with four points on the night, while Poulin had three. The win kept fourth place Minnesota from gaining ground, but more importantly secured a playoff spot for Montreal.
“It’s nice for sure. It was definitely an objective of ours that we have now achieved,” said Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie. “We can celebrate it and enjoy it tonight. And then for our group, we just continue to push forward and continue to focus on what’s next, and that comes back to our process and how we want to approach each game.”
Sceptres Finish Strong Against Fleet
The Boston Fleet had 6,028 fans in attendance at their second ever game in the City of Boston at Agganis Arena. The power of a larger-than-normal home crowd however, was not enough to power the Fleet to the finish. Boston jumped out to an early 1-0 lead on Hilary Knight’s 14th of the season. They held that lead until 4:07 of the third period when Daryl Watts jump started the Sceptres with her 9th of the year. Knight and Watts would each score again in the third, but so would Toronto’s Hayley Scamurra and Renata Fast to give the Sceptres a 4-2 win.
After the stumble, Boston will look to get back on track Saturday on the PWHL’s final stop of the Takeover Tour.
“We can trust everybody in that room. It’s just critical plays of picking up a stick here, dropping coverage there, finding ourselves in the box when we shouldn’t be, just things like that,” said Hilary Knight following the loss. “Obviously, it’s a game of minimizing mistakes and we go back to the drawing board and look forward to St. Louis at this point.”
