The line of Mélodie Daoust, Sarah Fillier and Natalie Spooner on Canada’s women’s hockey team has been taking the 2021 IIHF Women’s World Championship in Calgary by storm. But there’s one thing they’re missing: a nickname.
“The moms and the kid,” Daoust, 29, suggested with a laugh while sitting next to her 21-year-old teammate Fillier.
Fillier centres the line with Daoust and 30-year-old Spooner. The trio lead the tournament so far with a combined 24 points in five games, including an eight-point performance in Canada’s 7-0 win over Germany in Saturday’s quarter-final.
“They've been playing fantastic – just a nice mix,” head coach Troy Ryan said after Saturday’s game. “It's no secret Daoust plays with good poise and patience and has great hands and distributes the puck well. Natalie Spooner does a lot of the down-low work and is prepared to occupy good space in front of the net. And Sarah Fillier is a finisher that plays the game with speed.”
“We love to have fun,” Daoust told TSN over Zoom. “I think when we play with a smile on our face, that's when we play our best game and play confident.”
The Canadians will now face Switzerland in Monday’s semifinal, with the United States and Finland battling it out in the other semi. The bronze and gold medal games take place Tuesday at WinSport Arena.
Canada’s so-called second line has been turning heads from the get-go this tournament, combining on the game-winner in Canada’s opener, a 5-3 victory over Finland.
“I think what helped us the most was to do video as a line after the first game and really figure out what our strength was individually and how we could put it together,” Daoust said. “So, it was pretty easy to come together and figure each other out and use our strengths to our advantage.”
The trio’s success is even more remarkable considering they only trained together as a unit for a week prior to the tournament. Fillier had spent some time playing with Daoust and Spooner separately two years ago, and she had also trained with Spooner in Toronto for the past year.
Daoust and Spooner have been long-time teammates but have never been on a line together.
“She definitely faked me out the first few times in practice,” Spooner said with a laugh after Saturday’s game. “I thought she was gonna shoot it every time.”
Daoust has almost always been on a line with her close friend and team captain, Marie-Philip Poulin. The two have had perennial chemistry on the ice, as illustrated in Saturday’s game when the pair worked a give-and-go on the power play to perfection, with Daoust netting the goal.
“When we decided to split them up, it was definitely not because of any negatives,” Ryan said. “It was just probably spreading out a little bit of the offence and spreading out the value they both bring individually to other units. But we know that’s something we can always come back to and the chemistry they have on five-on-five as well as the power play is very dangerous.”
“I'm not gonna lie. At the beginning I was surprised, in a sense, because I've been playing with her since 2014,” Daoust said about being moved from Poulin’s line. “But change never hurts. And I think it's clear that this year, we're doing everything for this team and it's not for the individual or just for yourself.
“I want to make sure that every single line performs, and if I can help another line to perform, then that's going to be even better… I would play, to be honest, with anyone on this team. But lucky enough I got this little kid here,” she said, nodding to Fillier beside her with a smile.
Fillier was training with Jill Saulnier and Emma Maltais, a fellow world championship rookie, while Daoust was partnered with Blayre Turnbull and Rebecca Johnston during camp earlier this summer before Ryan juggled the lines in the week prior to the tournament.
“They've done well building some chemistry in a very short time and they just seem to be having fun and enjoying the game right now,” said Ryan.
“I think a huge part of our chemistry is just sitting down and talking about what our tendencies are as individual players and what we see with the puck,” Fillier told TSN.
According to Spooner, another reason for the line’s success comes from the differences among the three players.
“Melo, you look at her – she’s so dynamic, she has the fake, she can score,” Spooner said after Saturday’s game. “Fillier just seems to find the right open spots and she's also a sniper. Then me – just trying to own the net front and retrieve pucks for our line. So, I think we've just all really committed to doing our job and it's made us super successful out there and created a lot of opportunities for us.”
Fillier, the youngest player on the Canadian roster, echoed Spooner’s sentiments on the strengths of her linemates, but opted not to talk about herself. Daoust was quick to chime in about her young teammate.
“She’s being humble right now. I think she has one of the best shots in the world. She's able to put it where she wants,” she said.
Fillier has been one of the breakout stars of the tournament with three goals and two assists. Before the world championship, her teammates sang her praises, with Turnbull telling TSN she thinks Fillier will be the best player in the world.
While Fillier has lived up to a lot of the hype, she says she doesn’t pay attention to the “outside noise.”
“People can say what they want and predict what they want. But at the end of the day, I just want to perform as best as I can and do as much as I can for the team. Our goal is to win a world championship,” she said.
Ryan said he knew Daoust and Spooner both work well with younger players and help them gain confidence, which is another reason he formed this trio. Fillier credits her veteran linemates for helping her adjust to her first world championship.
“It’s been like a pleasure being between the two,” she said. “I think with two people who've been through this for a couple years and have the experience – having them beside me and just helping me maintain and keep being confident is this something I'm so lucky to have.”
Daoust first made her national team debut in 2011, but she didn’t play in her first world championship until 2019 due to various injuries over the decade. In that tournament, she finished with four assists in seven games.
She currently leads these women’s worlds with 10 points (four goals, six assists) despite coming off wrist surgery in May.
But much like Fillier, she’s not interested in personal praise
“I don't really care,” she said about leading the tournament in scoring. “I only care if we have a W on the score sheet at the end of the game. That's very special and I think this group is doing amazing right now.
“Yes, we're putting a lot of pucks on net and we're scoring lots of the goals for our team right now. But I can assure you that every single line can contribute. And if it's not us that scores, it's gonna be the next line.”