PWHL's Toronto and New York go for round two with the Big Apple seeing more fireworks than round one
The PWHL is back Friday night with New York hosting its first ever home game. New York is coming off a big 4-0 win in the season opener over Toronto, who look to bounce back in this one. The win for New York was led by forwards Chloe Aurard and forward Alex Carpenter, who both found their way onto the scoresheet with two points each. It seems the sportsbooks haven’t caught on yet to the amount of defense and goaltending in the PWHL.
The under in total goals has hit in three consecutive games so far with strong goaltending being seen across the league like Minnesota's Nicole Hensley, who had the most impressive performance between the pipes so far with 33 saves and only two goals against in a 3-2 upset win over Boston Wednesday night.
Will Toronto be able to get past Corrine Schroeder their second time around or will New York's Canadian netminder show up with another stellar performance? Here is our best bet for tonight’s PWHL action between Toronto and New York. All betting odds listed are from Bet365 and are subject to change.
Toronto’s updates scoring plan to include more Maltais, Spooner
Things didn’t go too well for Toronto last time out with no goals in their own home opener. Toronto will look to change things up and come back with a vengeance. They will need to lean on the players they drafted highly in games like this to show why they selected them in the first place. Toronto fans will need to see scoring from forwards Emma Maltais and Natalie Spooner, who were their second and fourth round picks respectively.
Maltais is a known playmaker, who’s been getting teammates involved during her five years at Ohio State, where she led or tied the team lead in assists every season at one of the most competitive women’s collegiate hockey programs. In her last two seasons, she averaged around an assist per game with an average of 1.05 in 2019-20 and 0.94 per game in 2022-23. Spooner will also need to help get points on the board, as she has her entire career with most recently 69 goals and 117 points in 115 games playing out of the former Canadian Women’s Hockey League.
If Toronto can get their two best forwards involved and have a bounce-back performance from third-round pick Kristen Campbell between the pipes, then Toronto should have a much better shot to win this game.
New York backs up two-way game at home
The slide for Toronto started pretty fast when New York’s first round pick Ella Shelton took a shot from the point through four players, where Campbell couldn't see a thing and had the puck go past her for the first goal of the game and first goal in PWHL history. It was even play for the second period before things fell apart in the third with two fast break goals off defensive breakdowns from Toronto. The ladies from New York played a great two-way game capitalizing on chances presented and playing strong defense, not giving up a goal despite four Toronto powerplays.
They will need to play with the same intensity in their own building and continue that two-way game with defensive efforts from their high draft picks like the aforementioned Shelton along with plays from defensemen second-round pick Jaime Bourbonnais and eighth-round pick Brooke Hobson. Bourbonnais made a pass to Alexandra Labelle, who made a great pass in the slot to Kayla Vespa, who scored the fourth goal. Hobson kept the pressure on Toronto with four shots on goal from the point. They will need their ladies on the backend to hold off Toronto’s offense once again and force the same defensive breakdowns and have their offense take care of the rest.
Best Bet: Over 5.5 goals (-130)
Toronto should bounce back in a high-scoring response for their fans, who were disappointed by their first efforts in their home opener. They may lean so hard into their offense, that they still will have defensive breakdowns, which makes me believe both teams will have back-to-back response goals and make this the most exciting PWHL game yet.