The Sceptres Have All The Help They Need
The Toronto Sceptres learned the hard way last year that it’s risky to lean too hard on one star, even when the star’s up to the task. When Natalie Spooner tore her ACL in the third game of the semifinal round of the PWHL playoffs in May, the Sceptres lost a league-leading goalscorer and pretty much their entire offense, too. Toronto scored just one goal in the final three games of that series. The injury cut short their inaugural season, and complicated their next one: The Sceptres would have to replace an MVP’s production for as long as it took Spooner to get back. Could they make it work?
No, the first few games suggested. Behind a shaky defense, Kristen Campbell, the league’s top goalie last year, struggled to start the season. The team clearly missed Spooner’s net-front presence and the high-percentage shots she generated with her size and quick hands. But things took an encouraging turn in late January, when the last-place Sceptres began to lose in shootouts instead of in regulation. Suddenly, they were putting together a point streak. Soon, the point streak became a win streak. With a 3-2 overtime win against Ottawa on Sunday, Toronto’s fourth straight, the Sceptres moved into second place in the PWHL standings, only behind juggernaut Montreal.
Spooner’s absence forced the Sceptres to search everywhere for help, and it’s arrived now, in many forms. In the offseason, they signed 25-year-old forward Daryl Watts, who had rounded into a top offensive player in the league by the end of last season, even if her Ottawa team’s playoff push fell short. Though she was meant to replace (at least some of) Spooner’s production, Watts comes by her offense in very different ways. She plays a game built on surprise and creativity. In her overtime game-winner against Ottawa on Sunday, Watts drove to the net, faked a pass to freeze the Charge’s defenders, and then looped behind the net for a quick wraparound. Earlier in the night, she danced into the slot on the power play and opened the scoring for Toronto with her quick, accurate shot.
A midseason blockbuster trade swapped out defender Jocelyne Larocque for the younger, more offensive-minded Savannah Harmon. And the team’s young players, like Jesse Compher and Emma Maltais, have continued to grow. But the Sceptres’ breakout hero might be forward Hannah Miller, who cuts such a distinct figure that on Sunday, her team subjected her to a birthday prank where they all dressed up like her. Miller’s growing horror as she notices each new detail of the bit makes the video even better. (“My PANTS? My SHORTS?”)
A Vancouver native, Miller represents China in international play, which may explain her relative lack of renown on this Toronto squad filled with Team Canada stars. But she leads the league in scoring and she’s made a home for herself on the right flank of the Toronto power play, which is converting at 31.5 percent right now, a big factor in their recent run of success. Good goaltending has helped, too. At the postgame press conference, head coach Troy Ryan praised starting goaltender Raygan Kirk for keeping the team alive in the first period of yesterday’s game, when the Sceptres were still trying to find their legs after a cross-country flight to Edmonton, where the game was played as part of the league’s neutral-site schedule.
The best part of Toronto’s resurgence is that Spooner is healthy again. To ease her back in after her nine-month rehab, the Sceptres held her out of the lineup in Edmonton, but she made her season debut last week in Toronto’s overtime win against the Frost and looked basically like her old self. The hockey gods are unkind: Spooner’s return coincided with star forward Sarah Nurse being placed on long-term injured reserve, meaning Nurse will miss at least the next six games. But the rest of the Sceptres have proven they can handle this kind of challenge.
