Another home loss stings Sceptres, but they still control their playoff fate

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The Toronto Sceptres second-to-last chance to pad their standing before five pivotal games that will determine their playoff fate ended in disappointment Sunday.

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For the second game in a row, after six games in which they collected at least a point, the Sceptres failed to collect a point at home, leaving their hold on the fourth and final playoff spot in jeopardy.

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A 3-2 loss to the Vancouver Goldeneyes was the product of a ton of good work by former Sceptres and not enough by the present-day model.

Goals from ex-Sceptres Hannah Miller and Izzy Daniel and a two-assist night from another former Sceptre in Sarah Nurse settled this one for the visitors as Vancouver got out of town with a three-point victory.

There were plenty of chances for Toronto to get this one into overtime or even win it in regulation but the finish was again wanting from the home side.

Team captain Blayre Turnbull scored twice, including giving the Sceptres an early 1-0 lead, but the Goldeneyes survived a frenzied push in the final period from Toronto to settle things without an overtime.

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Toronto now has six games remaining, three against Ottawa, two against New York and a single game against Minnesota. It owns a one-point lead on Ottawa, that has two games in hand but played Sunday night in Seattle.

Toronto owns a four-point lead over New York but the Sirens have an extra game left to play.

Here are our takeaways from Sunday’s loss:

CHANCES GALORE BUT NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT

One of these days the Sceptres are going to connect on a back-door pass and get the goal such a nice play demands.

For the second game in a row the Sceptres had multiple opportunities on plays just like that but couldn’t bury one. Rookie Kiara Zanon appeared to twice be looking at open nets on feeds from teammates, once in the first and once in the second, but failed to find the back of the net on either.

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Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan said he really felt for his young rookie, who apparently came back to the bench after the second one rather red-faced. Whether that was anger or embarrassment only Zanon knows, but what was clear to everyone was that at least one of those plays should have resulted in a Toronto goal.

Zanon wasn’t alone in her frustration. Emma Maltais, Jesse Compher and Ella Shelton pinching in from her normal offensive zone home on the Toronto blue line all failed to get any real wood on pucks in front of the Vancouver net.

Emerance Maschmeyer was making her first start in the Vancouver net in almost a month. As solid as she was when tested Sunday, Toronto’s best chances never seemed to reach her net as the Sceptres continually whiffed on their in-close opportunities unless your name was Blayre Turnbull.

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FATE IS IN THEIR OWN HANDS

No matter what, the Sceptres are going to be able to control their own playoff fate. Those three games with the Charge and two more with the Sirens will determine whether the Sceptres can extend their season. Back-to-back home losses doesn’t help going into those games, but Ryan wants his players to remember that they ensured they control their own destiny with the 14 points in six games that preceded this little stumble.

“I know in the past it has come down to the wire (in the PWHL playoff race) and I have no doubt this will come right down to the final day,” Ryan said. “It’s important for us not to get too frustrated with our last couple of games here because they have worked hard since that Olympic period to get back in the race so I think we have to have a sense of pride and let that carry us through these next games.”

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NURSE HAS FOUND HER GROOVE

After an injury kept her out of the lineup for the better part of the first month and a half of the season, former Sceptre Sarah Nurse is making up for lost time.

Nurse added two more assists to her season tally Sunday, giving her five points in four games against her former team.

“I think she’s just a player who gets better, although it’s not necessarily in her personality, she gets better when the game gets a little greasier,” Ryan said. “You’ll find someone like Sarah Nurse gets better as the season goes on, as the playoffs start to happen or the games get tight. Even at the Olympics she was pretty good through the early play but I thought her gold-medal game was great. She just tends to rise to those occasions and it’s probably about her ability to deal with the pressure.”

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TIME AND PLACE NEED SOME WORK

In Ryan’s mind, the turning point in the game should have been Blayre Turnbull’s game-tying power-play goal in the second.

The power play has been a sore spot since the return from the Olympics and to finally get one at such an important time in the game should have, in Ryan’s opinion, turned this game decidedly in Toronto’s favour.

The problem was the Sceptres didn’t give it any time to have any effect because they gave up a breakaway the very next shift, survived it but it cost them a penalty and then almost immediately gave up a power-play goal that eventually turned out to be the winner.

“Our game management side was not ideal,” Ryan said. “In that situation we don’t need to put the game away right now. We should let that sit a little bit and settle and that would allow us to tilt the ice with that. So, it was kind of a game management thing and a little bit of a risk management thing.”

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MAYBE TRY WHAT THE OPPOSITION IS HAVING SUCCESS WITH

For the second consecutive game the Sceptres were on the losing end of the net-front play in the game. The Goldeneyes, as the Fleet did on Saturday, were able to get some pucks through the initial defenders lined up at the tops of the circles on Vancouver’s defenders and catch deflections in front of that second tier for goals against Toronto.

Ryan said he would like to see his team try and use that approach where you adjust to the coverage and find that little gap to the net and fire pucks through counting on the next level of offence in and around the goalie to tip pucks in.

It’s what the Fleet did Friday on the Liz Scheppers eventual game winner and it’s what the Goldeneyes did as Sophie Jaques shot was deflected by Manon McMahon.

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In Renata Fast and Ella Shelton as well as Kali Flanagan, the Sceptres have the defenders capable of moving the puck along the top of the offensive zone until they locate a gap and then fire it towards the net.

QUICK HITS

In four games against the Sceptres the Goldeneyes have scored 10 goals and seven of them have been scored by former Sceptres. It can be a tough pill to swallow but as Ryan pointed out post game Nurse and Miller, who have combined for four of those goals against their former team were pretty good players before they became Sceptres while Izzy Daniel, who has three against Toronto spent only a year in Toronto’s system which she arrived in fresh off a Patty Kazmaier award … A real positive from Sunday’s game was the first power play goal the Sceptres have scored in ages. And while it wasn’t the prettiest looking thing and while they still trail the rest of the league by a huge margin in power play successes, it did get a monkey off the team’s back. The Sceptres are going to need that power play to get clicking if they are to first make the playoffs and then do any damage if they get in … It is still undetermined whether Raygan Kirk will be sufficiently healed to travel with the team to Calgary for Wednesday’s Takeover Tour game with the Charge. Kirk has missed the past two games after sustaining an upper body injury during practice.

mganter@postmedia.com

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