The Toronto Sceptres shutout the hapless Seattle Torrent 2-0 as injuries continue to mount for the last place Torrent whose season has seemingly gone from bad to worse.
Aside from their torrential fan support, nothing has gone as planned this season for the hapless Seattle Torrent. Sunday afternoon, things went from bad to worse for the Torrent as they were shutout 2-0 by the Toronto Sceptres, and watched their injury count continue to mount.
Seattle was already without Hannah Bilka, who will miss the rest of the PWHL season, Hilary Knight who remains on long term injured reserve since the Olympics, and Mikyla Grant-Mentis, who was injured by a dangerous hit from Britta Curl-Salemme in Seattle's most recent loss. Sunday the team watched as Cayla Barnes collided with Toronto's Ella Shelton, and although she remained on the bench, Barnes didn't return to action as the hits continued to come for Seattle.
“We just make sure we stick to the basics: getting pucks to the net and bodies by the net. You just keep trying to generate those opportunities," said Seattle coach Steven O'Rourke following the loss. "I thought [today] we carried some really good momentum and some really good looks in that second period and late in the third we did some good things. Again, it doesn’t matter who is in this lineup. We believe in these players. We have two reserves in there who did a great job tonight and, again, the rest of them, like Danielle [Serdachny], are stepping up and taking on that extra load. It’s not even a thought for us of who is in and who is out — we just get to the job and handle it every night."
With Seattle the lone team in the PWHL yet to hit the 20 point mark, their future is beginning to look more like a Gold Plan team than a playoff team. While injuries, scheduling, and travel could be to blame, the Torrent are not making excuses.
"I feel like there's lots of room for excuses, you could plan travel, schedule, but at the end of the day we're professional women's hockey players, so we're grateful for the opportunities to play this many games and play in front of incredible crowds," said Torrent forward Daneille Serdachny. "I thought our team did a really good job honestly for playing three games in a short amount of time and all the travel we've had, so I'm proud of our group for that. It definitely plays a little factor, but by this time we're a little bit used to it."
Sceptres Continue To Rebound
The Toronto Sceptres have played some of their best hockey of the season following the Olympics and did so again on Sunday in front of a sold out crowd of 8,270 at Coca-Cola Coliseum.
Raygan Kirk stopped 32 shots for her first career PWHL shutout, including stopping 13 in the third period. Blayre Turnbull opened the scoring for Toronto four minutes into the game, and the game remained 1-0 until late in the thid when Sara Hjalmarsson ice the game scoring an empty netter with eight seconds to go.
The win was not only Kirk's first career shutout, but was also her first home win of the season.
“I woke up this morning and was a little bit mad I hadn’t won at home yet. I’ve been feeling that a bit lately, and I think we owed it to our fans after those past few home games," said Kirk. "Taking advantage of being at home is a huge edge, and with this crowd and this energy, being able to sleep in your bed.. that was my mentality coming in, and it worked out.”