PWHL Toronto started slow, but has been putting the pieces in place ever since finding confidence, and climbing the standings. It has GM Gina Kingsbury happy with her team.
PWHL Toronto started slow, but has been putting the pieces in place ever since finding confidence, and climbing the standings. It has GM Gina Kingsbury happy with her team.
PWHL Toronto has come a long way in a short time. After opening the inaugural PWHL season with one win in their first five games, PWHL Toronto has won five of their last six.
According to Toronto general manager Gina Kingsbury, although she didn't expect her team to start as slow as they did, the progress since then has been worth the early struggles.
"We have to recognize it's a season and it's a process, we knew that from the start," Kingsbury told The Hockey News. "Obviously we would have liked to have more wins at the start and there were a few things that we wanted to see us improve on, but we always believed in the process. A lot of those losses we played a really good team game, so we were at happy with the little pieces, the little building blocks we were doing as a group."
Those building blocks have turned into not only a solid foundation, but have translated to improved individual performances, and more importantly, team success.
"Now it's paying off, the work that we put in during that time frame and hopefully we can keep it going," she said.
Trusting the process in professional sport is easier said than done in a results driven industry. People pointed to early season struggles from key Toronto players like starting goalie Kristen Campbell and captain Blayre Turnbull, but internally, Toronto was never worried about these players. Kingsbury and her team believed the results would come, and as it relates to Toronto's star players, the worry expressed by media and fans were not shared by the team. That included early point totals for captain Blayre Turnbull who did not register a point until her seventh game and goal until her ninth game of the season.
"We all label success as goals," said Kingsbury. "Turnbull brings so much to this team both on and off the ice, but the way she plays, the style of play she plays, she's been playing great all season. I know the narrative is always around, 'well she hasn't scored yet, she's one of the free agent signings,' and all that, but I want to put the record straight, we've been more than happy with her performance and what she's been bringing to our program. I want that to be clear and she's been very happy with her performance as well. She's a hard player to play against, she shuts down teams, she's playing exactly the way she should be playing."
For Toronto, a team built around members of Canada's national team, Kingsbury believes some of the early struggles may be attributed to players attempting to fill roles, or be players they weren't meant to be.
"All around I think our players are really finding their groove," she said. "Their success that they're seeing is also their ability to continue to play the role that they're great at. Sometimes in this league and what we found maybe at the start as well, is some players play a certain way at the national team and then they come to a professional league and think they have to change their ways and be something that they're not necessarily built to be. In that way our athletes are finding success being true to their identity as a hockey player and I think it's paying off right now for this group."
And while PWHL Toronto is trending upward and winning games right now, the season is just now moving toward the halfway point. There will still be ups and downs and opportunities for improvement. That growth could come internally, or as has become an increasing topic in the PWHL this week, it could also come through a trade. At the moment, Kingsbury won't rule a move out, but she's also in no rush to make any changes to her roster.
"It's always on the table, you wouldn't be in a professional environment if you weren't always looking at how can we maybe make some upgrades or how can we modify our roster to make sure we're as strong as we possibly can be heading into playoffs," she said.
"The tricky part right now, I think [PWHL New York GM] Pascal (Daoust) had mentioned it in a few interviews, it's hard to make a trade without having a pool of other athletes to be able to pull from, so the trade has to be well designed where it benefits both teams and it's the right move. With that said, I'm definitely open to what is out there and having conversations with other GMs and seeing what would fit, but certainly no rush or urgency to be moving players or make those decisions. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. I really like the make up of our team, I think we're showing how we're built, we're showing more and more identity of being hard to play against, I think I like that."
PWHL Toronto fans are liking it too, filling Mattamy Arena and Scotiabank Arena with sold out crowds as their team continues to climb the PWHL standings.