As the calendar turns to March, the six Professional Women’s Hockey League teams face three busy weeks before a break for April’s world championship.
With two full months of hockey in the books, it’s clear this league is competitive. More than half of the games so far have been decided by one goal.
Part of the explanation is stellar goaltending, which makes it hard to score goals. The other is the way the league was designed. All six teams have the same owner with access to the same resources. Players were distributed through a draft and free-agency process with parity as the goal.
The PWHL is back in action on Saturday with two games that will stream on CBC Gem, cbcsports.ca and the CBC Sports app for iOS and Android devices: Toronto at Ottawa at 3:30 p.m. ET (which also airs on CBC TV) and Boston at Montreal at 4 p.m. ET.
“I don’t think we could have figured that out better from the results we’re seeing right now,” Jayna Hefford, the league’s senior vice-president of hockey operations, said this week.
Here’s what the numbers say about each PWHL team heading into Saturday’s games.
Montreal
Montreal has been consistently good this season, and enters March atop the standings.
The team is fun to watch, whether it’s Laura Stacey’s ability to break out with speed or Marie-Philip Poulin’s magic with the puck.
But perhaps no player has been relied on more by Montreal this season than defender and power-play quarterback Erin Ambrose, who sees the ice like few others can.
Over the month of February, Ambrose played an average of almost 27 minutes per game, more than anyone else in the league, according to a CBC Sports analysis of the PWHL’s time on ice data.
She has three points in that time, including an assist that set up Stacey’s overtime game-winner in Boston on Feb. 4.
“I just drove the net, [Ambrose] had a ton of patience, and I put my stick on the ice and she made a perfect pass to me [at the] back door,” Stacey said after that game.
Like Ambrose, Montreal relies on Stacey a lot. She played more than 22 minutes on average per game in February, more than all but one other forward in the league.
Minnesota
Minnesota enters March on a three-game losing streak after a solid start to the season.
They’ve been without Taylor Heise, one of their best players, through most of the last month after she was injured playing for Team USA at the Rivalry Series. Coupled with trading away another threat to score in Susanna Tapani, goals have been hard to come by for Minnesota’s forwards lately.
It doesn’t help that the team sits last place on both power-play efficiency (5.7 per cent) and on the penalty kill (77.1 per cent).
One bright spot has been defender Sophie Jaques, who’s racked up two goals and an assist in her five games since a trade brought her to Minnesota from Boston. She’s looked like the offensive threat she was last season with Ohio State University, a performance that earned her the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best female player in college hockey.
“Hopefully we can give her the same belief and confidence that the Ohio State staff gave in her to perform at her best and to go out there and do her thing, and play free and have some fun,” Minnesota GM Natalie Darwitz told CBC Sports after she traded for Jaques.
It looks like they’ve done just that so far.
Toronto
Toronto finished February undefeated over five games. It’s been a remarkable turnaround for a team that seemed a bit disjointed to start the season.
But the biggest turnaround has come in net. Kristen Campbell allowed 18 goals over her seven starts in January, with a save percentage of .890.
Compare that to February, when she allowed just eight goals over five games (a .945 save percentage).
One of her best performances was a shutout against Montreal in front of a record-breaking crowd of more than 19,000 at Scotiabank Arena.
“She’s our backbone,” Toronto forward Hannah Miller said after that game. “We’re so lucky to have her.”
Boston
Scoring has been a point of contention for everyone in the PWHL, but Boston has the fewest (28) going into March.
Captain Hilary Knight has only two goals so far despite putting 40 shots on net — perhaps a bit of an unlucky stretch for one of the best shooters.
GM Danielle Marmer acquired Tapani from Minnesota with the hope that she’d bolster a top six that hasn’t scored as much as many thought it would.
“She’s a natural goal scorer,” Marmer told CBC Sports after the trade.
Tapani’s had a goal and an assist over five games since joining the team, while leading all forwards on Boston in average ice time (20:57) this past month.
That helps, but Boston will need more to stand a chance of climbing higher in the standings.
A saving grace has been the play of goaltender Aerin Frankel, who stole three points for a 2-0 regulation win against Minnesota last week. Frankel made 41 saves in the shutout.
Ottawa
Ottawa sits two points out of the playoff picture behind Boston, which has a game in hand.
The team has gone to overtime four times this season and lost all four times, dropping points that could have the club sitting in a playoff spot right now.
Ottawa has also yielded more goals (34) than anyone else in the league. Starting goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer has saved the team at times, but she’s had a huge workload this season, having appeared in all 13 games.
To put that in perspective, she’s played more than 70 minutes more than the next goaltender, Toronto’s Campbell.
Ottawa doesn’t have any back-to-back games in March, but it will be interesting to see if head coach Carla MacLeod turns to Sandra Abstreiter or Rachel McQuigge to give Maschmeyer a bit of a break.
On the bright side, Ottawa goes into March with the momentum of a 4-2 win at home against New York on Wednesday.
“We needed that win,” MacLeod said after the game. “We needed it for not only us, but for all those fans in our building.”
New York
While Ottawa has yet to win in overtime, New York has logged most of its points in bonus hockey.
The team has only won in regulation twice, and with a 3-2-1 point system, that’s left valuable points on the table. New York is tied with Ottawa with 16 points, but sits in sixth place because Ottawa has more regulation wins.
WATCH | New York’s Ella Shelton mic’d up:
Join defender Ella Shelton on the ice against Toronto as CBC Sports presents Mic’d Up.
Their best player so far has been Alex Carpenter, who leads the league in points (16 in 13 games). She also led all forwards in ice time in February, playing more than 23 minutes on average.
Not far behind her is forward Abby Roque, who played more than 21 minutes on average in February. She likely would have been in first place if she hadn’t taken a game misconduct in the last contest against Ottawa.
On the blueline, defender Ella Shelton is tied with Boston’s Megan Keller for the league lead in points by defenders (10). She ranked fifth across the PWHL in average ice time in February.
