Red-hot PWHL Toronto takes show on the road and downs Ottawa

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The Battle of Ontario is no longer a one-sided fight in the PWHL.

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Toronto extended its win streak to seven games with a 5-2 win in the Nation’s Capital, the first time in three meetings between the two teams that has not gone Ottawa’s way.

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Playing before another raucous crowd of 8,447 at TD Place in Ottawa, Toronto took the crowd out of it early as Natalie Spooner tipped in a Sarah Nurse shot in the first for her league-leading 11th goal of the year to take an early lead.

Toronto never looked back, getting three more in the second before an empty-netter by Maggie Connors sealed it in the third, defusing Ottawa’s attempted comeback.

The regulation win and the three points bumped Toronto into second place overall in the PWHL behind only league-leading Montreal which won on home ice Saturday as well, defeating Boston 3-1.

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“I think it’s mentality,” Nurse said when asked how the team was able to turn things around after winning just one of its first five games. “I think we had a lot of confidence at the beginning of the season and we weren’t able to execute necessarily. Once we kind of switched our mentality, the little things started working for us.

“We weren’t focusing on necessarily the big picture of winning hockey games, it was little things like stick-lifting, being in good position, focusing on our concepts and our structure, and really leaning into that. I think that’s helped us those last couple games.”

Despite a third period that was dominated by Ottawa, Toronto owned the play for the majority of the game.

When Ottawa threatened, goalkeeper Kristin Campbell was there for Toronto, as calm as ever. Her best stop was probably a breakaway by national team member Emily Clark. As Clark was getting ready to make her move at speed, the puck rolled off her stick. Campbell still had to be in control to keep it from rolling into the net.

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For the game, Campbell stopped 23 of 25 shots and earned her eighth consecutive win.

The good news for Toronto is that the scoring is starting to get spread around as the visitors blitzed Ottawa for three goals in a span of 2:28.

Brittany Howard put Toronto up 2-0 just under three minutes into the second as Victoria Bach dug a puck out in the corner and fed her in the high slot. Howard’s goal was a pure goal-scorer’s goal as she went low blocker to, really, the only part of the net she could see. It was her second of the season.

Spooner then added to her assist total, coming down the boards and cutting towards the net before firing one into the pads of Emerance Maschmeyer, who had no chance of controlling a rebound. There to tap it in was Hannah Miller with her fourth of the year.

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Ottawa native Samantha Cogan got her first PWHL goal in her hometown after Ottawa head coach Carla MacLeod pulled Maschmeyer for the first time this season.

Backup Sandra Abstreiter, the German national team ’keeper, came on for just the second time this year. She started a game earlier but was injured early on and had to be replaced.

Cogan’s shot, the first Abstreiter faced, just managed to get past her making for a happy evening in the Cogan Ottawa home.

Abstreiter settled down after the early jitters and didn’t allow another as Ottawa mounted its comeback late in the second.

Gabbie Hughes, the U.S. national team forward, somehow managed to score from behind the net with Lauriane Rougeau draped all over her. Campbell stopped the initial shot but the rebound stayed loose in the crease and, with Blayre Turnbull on the verge of swatting it into the corner, Hughes’ stick from behind the net somehow knocked the puck in. It was Hughes sixth goal of the year.

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Ottawa defender Ashton Bell cut the Toronto lead in half five minutes into the third, but that was as close as the hosts would get.

Spooner was named the game’s first star with Hughes the second and Campbell taking third-star honours.

Showing a lot of jump and looking very much like she’s finding her PWHL legs, was Bach, the Toronto forward who missed the first month of the season to complete teacher’s college and has been finding her rhythm over the past month.

Bach had an empty-netter in the win over Montreal in the Battle of Bay Street at Scotiabank Arena last month, but this was by far her most impactful game.

She had the primary assists on both Howard’s and Cogan’s goals and was a constant threat on the ice along with linemates Jess Compher and Cogan.

Toronto returns home on Wednesday for a date with Boston and then hosts Montreal on Friday in a rematch of that Battle of Bay Street, only this time it will be staged in the familiar confines of the Mattamy Athletic Centre.

mganter@postmedia.com

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