Deja vu for Sceptres as they lose for sixth time in past seven games, falling to Montreal in Vancouver

Toronto owned the balance of play again but came up short to Victoire after another bad start

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Published Jan 09, 2025  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Montreal Victoire goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens (35) stops Toronto Sceptres' Hannah Miller (34) during second period PWHL hockey action in Vancouver, on Wednesday, January 8, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

The Toronto Sceptres have to be almost sick with the amount of good hockey they are wasting.

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For the sixth time in seven games after a season-opening win, the Sceptres came up short again, dropping a 4-2 decision to the Montreal Victoire before 19,038 delirious hockey fans at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

It was the second game of nine PWHL neutral site games this season — better known as the PWHL Takeover Tour — with the crowd the biggest to watch a PWHL game this season.

From a league perspective it was a smashing success, highlighting another viable expansion option, but for the Sceptres it was just another game in which they dominated play for the majority of two periods but couldn’t overcome a slow start.

The most frustrating part has to be that the same issues that have been plaguing the team continue to do so.

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Here are our takeaways from this one:

ANOTHER SLOW START

Periods two and three, especially period two, belonged to the Sceptres but somehow this club has to find a way to start the game with some sense of urgency.

The slow starts have been costly all season and that was the case again Wednesday in Vancouver when the Sceptres gave up two goals in the first 22½ minutes of play, both to Montreal’s third line, to put themselves in a hole.

A year ago, the Sceptres might have gotten away with this and they almost did, getting back to within a goal of a tie game, but the rest of the league is so much better this year than a year ago. Coming back from a two-goal deficit is hard. Coming back from three down is almost unheard of. Toronto almost pulled it off, but that only adds to the frustration. They are capable of beating even the best teams in the league, a spot Montreal has earned this year, but you can’t just give a period and some away and expect things to turn out.

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Montreal Victoire’s Marie-Philip Poulin, left, celebrates her goal with teammates as the Toronto Sceptres skate back to the bench during second period PWHL hockey action in Vancouver, on Wednesday, January 8, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

TRADE HANGOVER

We maintain the Sceptres still won the trade with Ottawa by a healthy margin, obtaining Savannah Harmon and Hayley Scamurra for Jocelyne Larocque and Victoria Bach, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t going to be some short-term pain involved.

Breaking up the duo of Larocque and Renata Fast, a pair this team has relieved heavily on since its inception, was always going to be costly. Over time it will become less so but there’s just no getting past the fact that Fast and new D partner Harmon need some reps together to rebuild the chemistry the pair shared in their college days at Clarkson. Fast played over 29 minutes in the game, far and away the most ice time logged by any player. Normally Larocque would be right with her in that category.

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Harmon will get to that point but you can’t expect someone playing just her second game with a new team to have the kind of familiarity with system to be able to log those kind of minutes. It also means Troy Ryan has to rely more on this third pair of rookie Rylind MacKinnon and Lauren Bernard. Rookies need to learn too, and Wednesday they got schooled by Montreal’s third line led by Brampton native Mikyla Grant-Mentis, who snuck in behind Bernard for the first goal and then outworked MacKinnon behind the net to set up the second.

COMPHER EXPANDING HER IMPACT

There were a handful of bright spots in this one from a Sceptres’ perspective, from the line of Blayre Turnbull, Emma Maltais and Hayley Scamurra to the perseverance the team showed in an eventual unsuccessful rally from a three-goal deficit.

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But the continuing bright spot is that of Jesse Compher, who has gone from a decent player in year one to someone who consistently brings it in multiple facets of the game.

With a goal and an assist in Wednesday’s loss, she has already matched her point output of a year ago, but it’s more than that. Compher is constantly in the middle of plays, either making them or breaking them up. She’s agitating at just the right level. Ask Montreal, who got under their skin more in the two Toronto games thus far and we’re pretty sure the most common response would be Compher. Right now, she’s the locker room leader for most-improved Sceptre.

QUICK HITS

Speaking of agitators, credit is due Noemi Neubauerova, who had her best game in a Sceptres’ uniform. She was physical and, like Compher, a real pest to play against. Toronto needs more of that … Two goals by Marie-Philip Poulin in Vancouver where she had both in that memorable 2010 Olympic Gold Medal 2-0 win over the U.S. just seems right, even if one of Wednesday’s was into an empty net. And scoring from her knees while falling back towards her own net was next level … Fast, with two more assists now has eight on the year, tied with Minnesota’s Claire Thompson for tops in the league … In her first game back between the pipes since a Dec. 18 4-2 loss to New York, Kristen Campbell allowed three goals on 25 shots. Campbell was by no means bad, the breakaway goal by Grant-Mentis the only one of the three we thought she had a legitimate shot to stop. That said, it’s going to be interest to see which goalie, Campbell or rookie Raygan Kirk, Ryan goes with Sunday in New York.

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