Sceptres dominate Fleet but can’t beat them on the scoreboard

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Just about everything looked in place. The home opener was a sellout. The team’s leading defender was back in the lineup after missing the season opener.

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The Sceptres even scored the first goal and thoroughly dominated the first period.

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Then all that momentum came to a crashing halt.

The Sceptres were a buzzsaw most of the night hitting the Fleet in waves of attack after attack, but after that first Blayre Turnbull goal, short-handed no less, the Sceptres couldn’t break that shell that is Aerin Frankel and the Fleet turned a lucky bounce and one blown defensive zone coverage by the Sceptres into a 3-1 win,spoiling the Toronto opener.

Consider the Fleet were held to just 12 shots all game, but scored twice, and then added an insurance marker into the empty net. The season is young, granted, but those 12 shots are the low water mark for any team in a full game so far this year.

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So on the one hand, the Sceptres can be encouraged by the way they smothered the opposition, but to come away with a loss despite that kind of showing still has to sting.

Here are our takeaways from a game that was right there for the taking for the Sceptres but wound up in the loss column.

Defence was very, very good

Outside of the third period goal by Susanna Tapani who was left just unchecked enough in the high slot to hammer home a feed from behind the net that became the game-winning goal, Toronto gave Boston just about nothing.

Raygan Kirk foiled former Sceptres forward Laura Kluge on a breakaway and stopped the initial shot by Jill Saulnier on a puck that would bounce in off Abby Newhook for the Fleet’s first goal, but other than that the Toronto netminder was not really tested.

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The defence in front of her and the forwards who dominated possession in the Boston zone made this a  one-sided game favouring the Sceptres in all respects save for the final score.

Offence not clicking yet

It certainly didn’t help to be down their leading scorer in Daryl Watts who is out with an upper body injury following a bruising hit in the first game. But Troy Ryan and his staff knew from the moment training camp began that the offence was going to have to come in a different way than it has in the past. The exodus of offensive talent via the expansion draft and free agency meant saying farewell to Hanna Miller who was a lynchpin on the power play as well as contributors like Sarah Nurse, Julia Gosling and Izzy Daniel.

“We’ve got to be better offensively and we’re not going to solve this in five or six games,” an otherwise pleased Ryan said after the game. “It will probably take a while. A team that generally has a lot of physicality or aggression or plays an energy game, sometimes the composure to stay off to weak side and watch things unfold and then join offensively can benefit you. I don’t think we did a good job on the weak side of the ice tonight.”

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Ryan talked about upgrading the scoring chances they had and believes that will come with time. But on this night they made it relatively easy for Frankel in the Boston net settling for a lot of shots with Frankel firmly set in her crease.

Power play needs some work

For the second game in a row the Sceptres went 0-for-3 on the power play and are now 0-for-6 on the season. Even handed a gift with just over five minutes remaining when the Fleet were whistled for too many players on the ice, turned out to be a gift the Sceptres were willing to hand back.

For that power play they did not manage a shot and were life and death to even get it into the opposing offensive zone. There was nothing crisp about it and maybe there shouldn’t be this early in the season.

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Ryan and his staff have purposely held back introducing a lot of concepts to the team to avoid overloading them too early. It was felt that was a contributing factor to the poor starts in each of the first two years so this year they have held stuff back purposely. Missing Watts again, specifically on the power play, didn’t help matters either.

Praise for Maltais

Emma Maltais has made a near seamless transition from the wing to centre this season and while she was held off the scoresheet Saturday, was singled out by her head coach for her approach.

“I’ve been around Emma since she was an underager at the U18 level and that might be the best, most mature 60 minutes of hockey I have seen he play,” Ryan said.

“She made a lot of small little plays,” he said. “Used her energy when she needed to use her energy and used composure when she needed to. She was available on a lot of plays in the middle.

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“I think she just played a more complete game than  a more one-dimensional game that sometimes players will play,” Ryan said.

The Maltais, Natalie Spooner, and Sara Hjalmarsson (she was filling in for Watts) line spent the vast majority of the night in the Boston zone digging out pucks and sending rubber Frankel’s way but like the rest of the team didn’t have much luck getting anything past the Boston netminder who stopped 24 or 25 shots.

The Frankel factor

Because it was Frankel who stoned them, there was a post-game feeling that the outcome didn’t feel quite so bad.

And while Frankel is no worse, and probably better than the third best goalie in this league, Ryan would have liked to see his Sceptres make her work a little more than she did.

“When you are facing a goalie that is playing strong and playing confident, you are not going to beat her often on those little one-offs or one-and-dones,” he said. “You have to get your back to her, take away her eyes and try to get some scrambles and we probably didn’t do that enough tonight.”

Next up

The Sceptres host the Ottawa Charge on Thursday at the Coca-Cola Coliseum with a puck drop at 7 p.m., before heading east to Halifax next Sunday for a Takeover Tour date with the Montreal Victoire in a 6:30 p.m. East start.

mganter@postmedia.com

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