PHF Weekend Review: A winless weekend hurts the Six’s standing, but not their Pride

After a 3-0 start to the season, this weekend provided a small shock to the Toronto Six. The most recent Isobel Cup winners from Boston, the Pride made the most of this two game series against the Six.

The Six used the same lineup for both games this weekend, first shared in the tweet below before their Saturday evening game:

That first game of the weekend was an even competition, with both teams showing their worth. After a scoreless first period, Emma Woods got Toronto on the board first with this contender for goal of the season:

That lead held until the 3rd period, until the former champions were able to tie it up on PHF-star Jillian Dempsey’s tight-angled wrister:

The game went to 3-on-3 overtime afterwards, which solved nothing, sending the game to the shootout. Christina Putigna and the Pride got one-up on this goal that probably shouldn’t have counted, because the puck seems to come to a complete stop:

However, it didn’t decide the game, as Toronto was unable to score and Boston sealed the deal with this goal from McKenna Brand:

From the PHF’s game page, here’s how the game went overall. You can see that the Six were clearly out shot, though it was exactly even (15-15) at the time Toronto took the lead, so perhaps score effects played a part in that.

Regretfully, this game did not go so well. In the second game of the weekend, just 18 hours after the last one ended, the Six were totally under fire in this game.

We’ll spare you the pain of suffering through each of the Boston Pride’s numerous goals and jump straight to the result of the game: Boston whooped Toronto 8-2.  We’ll look at the best of the goals for general fun, but to show all eight would be torture for you and for me.

Boston opened the scoring with this excellent cross-ice pass from Amanda Boulier to Jillian Dempsey:

Midway through the second, Boston were stamping their dominance on this game, with Sammy Davis burying Kali Flannagan’s wrister, stemming from some dominant offensive zone play:

Christina Putigna put the Pride up by 6 goals with another great feed in front of the net, this time by McKenna Brand:

Lindsay Eastwood, the scorer of Toronto’s first ever franchise goal, did make it 7-2 with this clapper:

At the end, the Pride’s captain Jillian Dempsey got herself a second goal to close the game out, on yet another good feed at the front of the net:

Here is how the game summed up, with the three Pride players deservedly getting the three stars:

This weekend saw the Toronto Six without their starting goaltender Elaine Chuli. It’s unclear what the reason for her absence is, but the Six decided to go with Samantha Ridgewell for both games. She played excellently in the Saturday game, but obviously the Sunday game was quite the shellacking. Hindsight might dictate that third-string goalie Tera Hoffman might have done better. Not only because she sports this ridiculously excellent mask:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CW66qp4szkV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The highlight of the weekend was obviously Emma Woods’ insane goal in the Saturday game, and Samantha Ridgewell’s great performance allowing just one goal in that same game. However, unfortunately, that’s all the good we can take from this weekend for Toronto.

Around the rest of the league, a Taylor Girard (4G 1A) and Kennedy Marchment (4A) dynamic duo helped the Connecticut Whale take both games of the weekend against the Minnesota Whitecaps.

Both the Buffalo Beauts and the Metropolitan Riveters had the weekend off.