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PWHL’s Boston Fleet return from World Championship break battered and bruised but ready for the final playoff push
“It just happened so quickly. And I was just hoping that she was OK because it was such a big collision."
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Hilary Knight returned from Czechia with her record-setting 10th World Championship gold medal, a shiny black eye, and three fresh stitches in her left eyebrow.
Despite the colorful bruise blooming along the side of Knight’s face, the Fleet captain emerged from the tournament relatively unscathed compared with teammate Aerin Frankel.
Frankel made 27 saves in the gold medal game before a third-period hit from Laura Stacey knocked her out of Team USA’s 4-3 overtime win over Canada.
“I’m not happy with that play,” a frustrated Knight said of the Stacey-Frankel collision, which resulted in a minor penalty against Stacey. “I think it was a free shot at a starting goaltender — one of the best goalies in the world, if not the best — and I didn’t like it.
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“It just happened so quickly. And I was just hoping that she was OK because it was such a big collision. From a young age, you’re always taught that regardless of where the goalie is, you’re not supposed to touch her and to go through her like that.”
Frankel wasn’t on the ice Thursday for the Fleet’s first full-team workout since the tournament. Prior to the international break, she was second in the PWHL among qualified goalies with a .924 save percentage and third with a 2.18 goals-against average.
There’s no indication whether Frankel will be available for the final three games of the regular season — a crucial stretch, as Boston sits in the third of four playoff spots. Just 2 points separate Boston from fifth-place Minnesota.
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The Fleet classified Frankel’s ailment as an upper-body injury, but coach Courtney Kessel said the team is still waiting for an official diagnosis. The goaltender is also suffering from an eye infection unrelated to the collision.
Regardless of Frankel’s timeline to return, Kessel isn’t worried about replacing her.
“We have three tremendous goalies, and so we’re lucky in that all three of them just had the World Championships,” Kessel said, noting that Klara Peslarova (Czechia) was named a tournament All-Star and Emma Soderberg (Sweden) recorded two shutouts and a 1.61 GAA during the tournament. “We’re ready to go. We’re refocused and generating some more offense.”
The Fleet (40 points) will return from the break Saturday afternoon with a game against Toronto (second place, 45 points) at the Tsongas Center. Boston will then play one game in Montreal (first place, 48 points) before closing out the regular season at home against Minnesota (38 points).
It’s an unfamiliar position for the Fleet, who at this time last year needed to win out and rely on other teams’ results working in their favor.
“Our fate is in our own hands this year,” Kessel said. “We’re in a [playoff] spot right now. And so if we do our job, we’re going to make it in, and we don’t have to worry about what other people are doing.”
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Staring down the final stretch of the season, Kessel is trying not to think too much about Wednesday’s announcement that the league will expand to Vancouver before next season. The addition of one team — and possibly more to come — is a significant step forward for the league, and women’s hockey as a whole, Kessel said, but it’s difficult to consider what expansion could mean for her roster.
The league hasn’t announced plans for an expansion draft, but given how other North American sports leagues have conducted expansion drafts in recent years, it’s reasonable to expect this year’s Fleet roster will undergo serious changes in the offseason.
“The key for me,” Kessel said, “is like, ‘Hey, this is our group right now. It’s probably not going to be our group next year because of this expansion, so let’s go out there and play for each other.’ ”
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