PHF Weekend Review: Toronto dominating Buffalo at hockey in the PHF too

As the Toronto Six get back into action this weekend, it was a weekend full of goals and celebrations for Toronto.

After some roster shakeups earlier in the week, and the weekend prior’s games being postponed, the Six had every excuse to be a little bit flat this weekend. They chose instead to dominate their opponents, the Buffalo Beauts.

Here was Toronto’s lineup for the game:

And Buffalo’s:

In the first game of the weekend, the first action for the Six players since 2021, Toronto came out strong early with a 3-0 lead. Rookie Leah Marino started it off with her second goal of the season on a great primary assist by fellow rookie Stephanie Sucharda:

Less than 4 minutes later, the team’s superstar Mikyla Grant-Mentis picked up a loose puck from a shot block by, I think, Saroya Tinker, and blows by Buffalo’s defence to beat Carly Jackson for what was called an unassisted goal:

Then, about 5 minutes before the end of the first, Toronto’s first ever draft selection Amy Curlew roofs her first goal of the season on a slick backhand, cleaning up a bit of a mess in front of the net. This goal comes with very well-earned assists by Natalie Marcuzzi, who rejoined the team recently, and captain Shiann Darkangelo:

Into the second period, Beauts goalie Carly Jackson tries to put pressure on Meagan Beres as she tries to cap off the 3-on-2 rush, the puck slides past Jackson and it looks like Stephanie Sucharda taps it into the net, but the goal was credited to Beres (Sucharda still gained an assist on the play). The team gave her a “1st goal” puck so perhaps that will get changed. Take a look and see who you think scored it:

That was all the action for this 2nd period. Into the 3rd period, Toronto’s Taylor Day got one, then Buffalo followed up with one to make it 5-1, but Toronto squashed any hope of a comeback pretty quickly with Leah Marino‘s second goal of the night, and six goals on the night for the Six:

That’s how the game would end, with the Six taking down the Beauts 6-1. Here were the 3 stars for the game:

Toronto’s lineup was unchanged except for Tera Hofmann getting her first start with Toronto:

And Buffalo made a few alterations after Saturday’s crushing defeat:

You would think that it would be difficult to follow up such a dominant performance with another one, but the Six did exactly that.

After the Beauts opened the scoring, assistant captain Emma Woods with this bar down snipe on the powerplay:

Toronto scored another one on the powerplay, and then the Beauts scored a couple on Toronto to make it 3-2 at the end of the 1st.

Those would be the last goals Buffalo would score this weekend, as the Six ran the show for the remaining two periods. First, Emma Woods got her second of the night, then it was Brooke Boquist finishing this insane cross-ice pass from Shiann Darkangelo:

From this point on it was the MGM (Mikyla Grant-Mentis) show, as she put up 6 points on the night with a hat trick and three helpers. Let’s see that hat trick for Toronto’s 5th, 7th, and 8th goals:

First, an unassisted goal on this great shorthanded effort:

Second, a snipe off of a great drop pass by Emma Woods:

And finally, for the hattrick, she waited until just the right time and fired the bottle-popping shot:

Here were the three stars for the night, with obviously Grant-Mentis getting the first, but Woods and Darkangelo also earned their spots in this list as well:

With these two wins, and holds the league lead with 9 wins on the season.

Toronto will be in action again next weekend, as they travel Danbury Ice Arena in Danbury, Connecticut to take on Kennedy Marchment and the Connecticut Whale. Marchment is second in the PHF in points with 15, but well behind, you guessed it, MGM, who has 23.

Connecticut, of course, is the team trailing Toronto in the season, not factoring in the games in hand that the Boston Pride have. Next weekend will be an excellent competition for top spot in the league. Both games will be on the league’s Twitch channel, so check that out next weekend.