LOWELL — The Boston Fleet made a triumphant return to the Tsongas Center on Saturday.
In the team’s first Professional Women’s Hockey League game in Lowell since Jan. 28, Boston earned a 3-0 win over the league-worst Seattle Torrent in front of a sellout crowd of 6,164 fans.
Abby Newhook, Susanna Tapani and Haley Winn scored for Boston, which bounced back into the win column following Tuesday’s 2-0 shutout loss to the Toronto Sceptres.
The win preserves Boston’s (10-5-2-4) spot atop the league standings, tied for first with the Minnesota Frost (41 points), with nine games remaining on the regular season slate. The Fleet will host four of its remaining five home games in Lowell this season.
“I thought it was probably our most complete game that we’ve played since the break,” said Fleet head coach Kris Sparre. “Really liked from start to finish a lot of parts of that game, and obviously it was nice to see the puck go in the net more than once.”
A defense-first identity continues to keep the first-place Fleet afloat, as another perfect showing from Aerin Frankel (21 saves) between the pipes propelled Boston to the win. And it was Boston’s proven penalty kill that allowed the hosts to gain early momentum.
The Fleet — which entered the matchup with the league’s second-best penalty kill (90.0%) — delivered four times.
“I thought our opening shift was just really, really good,” said Torrent head coach Steve O’Rourke. “I think we know we’re having some challenges scoring goals here, and we could have got that first one off the hop there. I think it just kind of sets the tone … going up against a goaltender of that caliber is challenging.”
And backstopped by Frankel, who made 12 saves in the first period, Boston survived the myriad of scoring threats from the visitors to nurse a 1-0 lead into the middle period.
Cutting across the blue line into the attacking zone, Newhook curled up the left boards before sending the puck into the corner for Megan Keller. The star defender collected the puck below the goal line, wheeled behind the net and found a cutting Newhook for a one-timer in the slot for a textbook delayed give-and-go.
“One of the focuses for us tonight was we certainly want to play behind other teams,” Sparre said. “We want to put pucks in and chip them and wear them down with our forecheck, but also we don’t want to handcuff our players. We want them to feel like they can make plays out there. So our focus tonight was, ‘Let’s make some hockey plays.’ “
Newhook, a Boston College product, has made an immediate impact in her debut season. She leads all Fleet rookies in goals with six.
“I think we’ve been dumping the puck in a lot recently and using our forecheck to our advantage, but this game we wanted to focus more on possessing the puck and making plays under pressure,” Newhook said. “So the play kind of opened up, and I saw Keller going down the wall, so I made the play down to her and tried to find a seam, and she made a great pass to me in front of the net.”
The Fleet continued to apply pressure in the second period and were rewarded with two power play opportunities due to a significant territorial advantage in offensive zone puck possession time.
But Boston came up empty on both attempts — including on other opportunities in the first and third — as the team struggles to find consistency with the extra attacker. After Saturday’s 0-for-4 showing, the Fleet is now a combined 0-for-20 on the power play in its last six games and boasts a 14.7% conversion rate this season (10-for-68).
Luckily for Boston, those woes haven’t done too much damage. The Fleet still earned wins in four of those six games and has proven that strong goaltending and a stingy penalty kill can be a sufficient formula for success.
Boston tacked on two even-strength insurance goals in the third to take a 3-0 lead. Tapani tapped in a cross-crease feed from Sophie Shirley on the doorstep before Winn found the back of the net at 9:08.
Winn, who has quickly become a star in her rookie campaign, received a pass from Daniela Pejšová of an offensive zone faceoff before unleashing a laser while in stride to the top left corner.
Sparre opted to separate Keller and rookie phenom Winn to start Saturday’s contest. The two-way blueliners have spent much of the season playing alongside each other on Boston’s top defensive pairing.
The bench boss went back to his Keller-Winn combination at times throughout the game but rolled with Keller with Riley Brengman and Winn with Pejšová as his top four defenders.
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