Montreal aims to even series as they host Boston in Game 2 on TSN
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Goaltender Aerin Frankel stole the show for Boston in the opener, now Montreal will aim to even their PWHL semifinal series as they host Game 2, Saturday at 7pm ET on TSN4, TSN.ca and the TSN App.
Montreal fired 54 shots at Frankel in Game 1 and Boston’s netminder turned away a league-record 53 of them, leading the road team to a 2-1 victory in overtime.
“I think Montréal did a good job of putting pucks on the net and obviously it tires you out as the game goes on, but you have to stay mentally focused,” Frankel said after the Game 1 victory.
Kristin O'Neill was the only Montreal player to beat the 24-year-old goaltender when she got to a deflected Laura Stacey shot and slid it into the net to open the scoring.
Lexie Adzija, who Boston acquired from PWHL Ottawa on trade deadline day, tipped a puck past Montreal goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens early in the third period to send the game into overtime.
Susanna Tapani, another Boston trade acquisition, then wrote her name in the PWHL history book, scoring the first-ever playoff overtime goal to earn Boston the Game 1 victory.
“Coming into Montréal, you know you’re going to have to weather the storm because the energy in this rink was tremendous,” Boston head coach Courtney Kessel said after the win. “It was loud from warmups to the end of that game, and we knew that (it would be). Did it go on a little bit longer than we wanted it to? Yeah, for sure, but I think you have to do what you have to do in playoffs.”
Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie was pleased with how hard her team played in the loss.
“We can’t dwell on it too much. We know that it’s going to be a long series,” Cheverie said. “If we can continue to put together a full game like that defensively — we had our opportunities to score [but] obviously need to put a couple of those in. It’s disappointing but, for us, I’m happy as a coach with that effort — aside from the outcome.”
After Saturday, the series will head to Boston for Game 3 at Tsongas Center which can also be seen on TSN, the exclusive home of the PWHL playoffs and the chase for the Walter Cup.
Montreal split the two games they played in Boston during the regular season, a 2-1 OT victory on Feb. 4 and a 4-3 regulation loss on May 4.