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Boston Fleet’s point streak halted after 3rd-period implosion against Toronto
"I think I need to take a breath, because [I was] pretty livid with the third."
For the first time in a long time, the Boston Fleet found themselves floundering on Wednesday night at Agganis Arena.
Clinging to a 1-0 lead entering the final period of play, Boston could not hold off the Toronto Sceptres over the final 20 minutes of action — relinquishing four goals, including three unanswered tallies, en route to a 4-2 loss.
The loss snaps Boston’s nine-game point streak that stretched back to Feb. 16, while Fleet netminder Aerin Frankel relinquishing at least four goals for just the second time all season.
“You can’t have a third period like that in this league … Listen, we knew they were going to show up. They’re a team that’s on the ups,” Fleet head coach Courtney Kessel said postgame. “And every game is a playoff-mentality game, so you have to show up.”
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Wednesday’s loss squandered a chance for Boston to reclaim second place in the PWHL standings against Toronto — with the Fleet (8-6-4-7, 40 points) now trailing both Montreal (10-6-3-6, 45 points) and Toronto (12-2-5-7, 45 points) with five games left on the regular-season slate.
Boston was once again led up front by captain Hilary Knight — who potted both of Boston’s tallies in the first and third periods of play. With her two goals, Knight now paces all PWHL skaters this season with 28 points — while her 15 tallies rank second behind Montreal captain Marie-Phillip Poulin’s 16 goals in the league.
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But despite posting another lofty stat line, that production rang hollow for Knight on an evening where the Fleet weren’t able to cultivate even more momentum ahead of the postseason.
“I think I need to take a breath, because [I was] pretty livid with the third,” Knight noted. “But no — we can trust everybody in that room. Just critical plays of picking up a stick here, dropping coverage there, finding ourselves in the box when we shouldn’t be. There’s things like that. And so obviously it’s a game of minimizing mistakes. And we go back to the drawing board.”
Knight snapped a 0-0 deadlock with 3:32 remaining in the opening period. With the Fleet on the power play, Susanna Tapani and Alina Muller orchestrated a pinball sequence by peppering Toronto netminder Kristen Campbell with a pair of shots.
Muller’s quick shot created another rebound bid in the blue paint, which Knight promptly jammed past the goal line for a 1-0 lead.
Frankel continued to stand tall in net over the first 40 minutes of action, keeping Toronto off the board at 10:40 in the second after robbing Toronto forward Emma Woods with a quick glove stop.
But the Fleet eventually took on water over the final period of play — surrendering three goals in the span of 6:09.
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Former Boston College and Wisconsin star Daryl Watts — doing her best reenactment of her NCAA-championship-winning tally against Frankel and the Northeastern Huskies in 2021 — fired a puck below the goal line that ricocheted off Frankel and past the goal line for the equalizer at 4:07.
“I mean, I think a few shifts in a row where we couldn’t get the puck out — ends up in the back of our net and a scrum below the goal line kind of hits off Franks and goes in the net,” Kessel said. “It’s a little bit unfortunate. But, I mean, you can’t ever take a shift off this league, right?”
Less than two minutes later, Hayley Scamurra gave the visitors the lead with her first goal of the season — knocking home a puck following a slapshot from Anna Kjellbin to make it a 2-1 contest.
Beyond the joy of lighting the lamp for the first time all year, Scamurra — a Northeastern alum — welcomed the significance of returning to Boston as a part of the PWHL.
“It was great. I actually have never played at this arena before, but just to be back in the city of Boston just kind of brought me back to my college days, and kind of how far we’ve come in women’s hockey,” Scamurra noted. “I think it really made me reflect and just so grateful for the league that we have now and how much it’s grown since then.
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“So it’s been really full-circle moments. Nice to have the win here for sure.”
Renata Fast gave Toronto a lead it would not surrender with a turnaround wrist shot at 10:16, but Knight responded with her second goal of the evening just 2:37 later — knocking home another puck at Campbell’s doorstep to make it a one-goal game.
But any hope of a late-game equalizer for Boston was snuffed out after both Megan Keller and Jessica Digirolamo were whistled for penalties on the same sequence — gifting Toronto a 5-on-3 power play that ended with Watts’ second goal of the night.
“I think when we get into a five-on-three situation where we have to kill it off and we’re a goal down, it’s really tough position to be in,” Knight said. “So obviously, I saw the first penalty, but then — I don’t know if it was undisciplined or what happened with the second one, but that’s not a good place for us to be in that point of the game.”
Entering the final stretch of the regular season, the Fleet might hold a slight edge over teams like the Frost (35 points) and Charge (33) in the PWHL standings.
But Kessel and the Fleet aren’t taking anything for granted at this juncture on the PWHL calendar.
“I mean, if anyone knows it best — you can never take your foot off the pedal,” Kessel said. “We were pretty far out of playoffs, everyone kind of wrote us off last year, and here we are in the Walter Cup Final — Game 5. So no, we haven’t punched our ticket yet, and we got to continue to show up, game in and game out.”
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The Fleet will resume play on Saturday, with Boston taking on the Ottawa Charge at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. Puck drop is set for 1 p.m.
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