Spooner's Two Goals Power Sceptres Over Victoire

Natalie Spooner scored her first two goals for the Toronto Sceptres as they defeated the Montreal Victoire in an impressive performance at home on Thursday night.

Goaltender Kristen Campbell played a solid game in net as the two teams battled hard in a feisty affair that saw 13 penalties between the two teams.

Campbell stopped 25 of 26 shots and the Sceptres' penalty kill out-dueled the Victoire's offensive stars, going six for six on shorthanded situations.

“[’Campbell] is keeping us in games now and making those big saves we need,” said Spooner.

“I think she has the confidence now and is rolling with it and we're going to need her here. So it's fun to see her play and have fun out there and make those big saves for us.”

"Definitely back into the swing of the games,” Spooner said about her play.

“I think it's still going to take some some more games to just really feel like I'm there with the timing and everything and then my habits but I think every game trying to build and make sure I'm learning from every game I'm playing since it's pretty quick to jump into it in the middle of the season and keep up.”

It was a burst of scoring that happened in the space of one minute midway through the second period that effectively put the game away for the Sceptres. First, Hannah Miller put a hard shot into a crowded net front where Montreal’s starter Elaine Chuli had trouble finding the rebound and defender Allie Munroe dove on the puck and put it in the net.

Just 59 seconds later, Maggie Connors broke in alone on Chuli and made a nice move to her backhand to make it 3-0. With that, Chuli went to the bench and Ann-Renee Desbiens took over.

“Right now the wins are more important because that's three points that a lot of teams right now are not getting. So it feels like a three-point win against the league. So that to me right now as a coach, you feel like you’ve just separated by three points from everybody when you beat the top team,” said Toronto coach Troy Ryan.

The game clearly meant a lot to both teams and the chippiness resulted in scrums after the whistle, pushing and shoving, and a high level of physicality.

"I think we know Toronto is going to be a physical team and that's why we showed up today and were physical back. But sometimes, we're going to take penalties. They're also going to take penalties and it's important for us to stay out of the box. We take pride in being disciplined. So we didn't see that as much as we would have liked to,” said Montreal’s Kristin O’Neill.

After a dramatic moment in the third had Desbiens chasing a loose puck way out of her crease, she had to trip Spooner who was breaking in and had an open net. The tripping penalty led to Toronto's second power play goal of the night. Renata Fast fired a nice one-timer that was tipped in by Spooner.

“It is hard when you know you're down 4-0 to try to stick to what the game plan is. But I thought the response from our group was was quite good. I thought they kept chipping away,” explained Montreal coach Kori Cheverie.

Marie-Philip Poulin scored her 13th goal of the season at 16:00 in the third period.

The win puts the Sceptres back into second place for the moment as they jumped ahead of Boston. The Sceptres now have a five-game winning streak on home ice, including four straight wins at Coca-Cola Coliseum. Their next game is against Minnesota on Sunday. Montreal plays next against Boston on Saturday.