Livescore
Laura Stacey had a return for the ages against the Toronto Sceptres on Thursday night. The forward notched three points, including a goal late in the third period and a nifty five-hole shootout goal. Her effort was enough to propel Montreal to a 4-3 victory.
Stacey sustained a lower body injury on Jan. 12 against the Minnesota Frost. Eighteen days later, she was a key piece in her team’s offensive presence throughout sixty-plus minutes of play, tallying points on all three Victoire goals.
“It’s always tough sitting in the stands, just watching your teammates play and wanting to be a part of it,” Stacey said. “The feeling that we had at centre-ice after the win would be my favourtie moment of the night. This crowd is electric. I’ve never felt so much love skating out there for warm up.”
Stacey found out that she was playing earlier in the day, and had a brief skating session in the morning to make sure she felt right. Ahead of the game she was listed as the thirteenth forward, but played over 20 minutes while spending time on each line.
“I don’t think you believed for a second that she was going to be the thirteenth forward,” said Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan after the game.
“A lot of it is a feeling. It’s where we think she can most have an impact,” said Victoire head coach Kori Cheverie. “She played on every single line in every single situation and that was the plan going into it, that she could play anywhere.”
Montreal’s two other goal scorers were Mariah Keopple and Maureen Murphy, with Marie-Philip Poulin scoring the shootout winner. Jesse Compher, Darryl Watts and Hannah Miller were the goal scorers for the Sceptres.
Thursday’s game marked the second of back-to-back nights of action for the Victoire. The team trounced the Ottawa Charge 4-1 a day prior,
Not lost in the Stacey celebration was the play of Victoire netminder Elaine Chuli. Through four periods of action, she stopped 37 of the 40 shots faced, and shut the door on many high-quality scoring chances from the opposition. When it mattered most, in the shootout, she stopped four of five attempts, with a chance from Watts clanging off the cross-bar.
Chuli’s performance merited the Montreal faithful chanting her name on more than one occasion. She was forced to come up big both in the three-on-three overtime and in the shootout.
“I honestly felt pretty confident in both,” said Chuli when asked which situation felt like it had more pressure. “That’s only my second shootout. Usually we do score in overtime,” she added with a laugh.
The Victoire now improve to 7-3-1-2, and take a more firm hold on top seed in the PWHL standings. With the win against Toronto, Montreal has won five of their last six matches.
Montreal will now make their way to New York for a game against the Sirens on Sunaday. The puck is set to drop at 2 p.m. EST.
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