Goal scoring for PWHL Toronto more than just Natalie Spooner show

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Goals have been tough to come by in the PHWL for the majority of the season.

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The simple reason is the goaltending is and always has been in the women’s game, ahead of the goal-scoring talent.

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The gap is definitely shrinking but ask any long-time watcher of women’s hockey and they will agree with this.

With a league-best 64 goals, this would appear to be a lesser problem for PWHL Toronto and it’s certainly becoming so but that hasn’t been the case all season.

For a good chunk of the year, the majority of Toronto’s scoring was coming from one line, the line that happened to include league-leading goal scorer Natalie Spooner.

Spooner has scored at every level and in every league she has ever played. As PHWL Toronto head coach Troy Ryan said Wednesday, he can’t recall a team he’s had her on when she wasn’t first or second on the team.

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Spooner’s gift is a combination of size, strength and great hand-eye coordination, not to mention a pretty sick patented breakaway move that she unleashed Wednesday against Maddie Rooney and calls on periodically when she’s called on in the shootout.

Spooner will take a beating in front of the net, maintaining her position and either providing enough distraction that a teammate slips one by the unfocussed goalie or consistently getting her stick on incoming shots that more often than not find their way into the back of the net.

Spooner’s 18 goals almost lap the rest of the league with three others sitting tied for second with 10.

Among that group is teammate Sarah Nurse and this is where Toronto’s scoring has taken a real uptick in the second half of the year.

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Nurse, a goal scorer of some repute in her own right, says watching Spooner has given her a new appreciation for what a stubborn net-front presence can elicit. Like Spooner, Nurse is never one to shy away from the more combative aspects of the game. She has slowly but surely found her own comfort zone in what coaches like to call the dirtier areas of the ice.

Five of Nurse’s 10 goals this season have come in the past three games, and four of those have come with her skates planted in or just in front of the blue ice of the goaltender’s crease.

That uptick in net-front goals isn’t a coincidence.

“I look at someone like Spoons and the net-front domain is hers,” Nurse said. “I feel like I’ve taken a lot of pride in putting myself there, but I don’t think it’s a space that I have gravitated towards. But I mean, I look up to Spooner because she owns the net-front. She is always tipping pucks, screening, doing that little play around the net to herself. The way she tracks pucks is so impressive so just trying to take little pointers from her and add that to my game.”

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Another member of Ryan’s squad that has seen her offensive numbers start to blossom is winger Emma Maltais.

In addition to joining the suddenly potent power play where her crisp passes are leading directly to goals, Maltais has in general really become a goal creator for this team, either at full strength or with the advantage.

Shorthanded that is when Maltais’ goal-scoring acumen shines as she combines a relentless forecheck with her ever present speed and endless energy and turns it into offence, down a player or not.

Maltais heads into the final weekend of regular-season play as the top assists-getter in the league with 15 helpers to go along with her four goals, two of which have come shorthanded.

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Ryan said one of his goals in these final few games before the playoffs begin Wednesday was to get more than just his top line scoring as he searched for more offence.

He did that by moving Spooner onto a line with Hannah Miller and Blayre Turnbull, leaving Nurse to play with Maltais and Maggie Connors.

In addition to adding Maltais to the power play up front, he moved Miller onto defence alongside Renata Fast for that first unit when Toronto has a player advantage.

Goals have been up ever since and so is this team’s confidence.

“I think we are in a really good spot,” team captain Blayre Turnbull said recently. “I don’t think by any means we are overconfident. I think we totally respect every team in this league and understand how good every opponent is that we could potentially face in upcoming games.

“But for us, we have gained a lot of confidence in how we started our season up until this point and the fun thing about this group is that we all believe that we can still bring even more so we’re excited where we are at. Confidence-wise we are in a really good spot.”

Toronto will finish the regular season with a game Sunday at 7 p.m. at Mattamy Athletic Centre with nothing really to play for. The opponent, Ottawa, could be playing for its playoff lives depending on how the games earlier in the weekend go.

mganter@postmedia.com

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