Laura Stacey had two goals and an assist as the Montreal Victoire defeated the Seattle Torrent 4-1 in a dominant win without injured captain Marie-Philip Poulin on Thursday night in the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
Catherine Dubois — with her first of the season — and Skylar Irving also scored for Montreal (10-4-1-5), which rebounded from surrendering a three-goal third-period lead in Sunday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Boston Fleet.
Ann-Renée Desbiens stopped 24 shots and Kati Tabin added two assists before 10,033 at Place Bell.
The Victoire tied the league-leading Minnesota Frost and Boston with 39 points atop the PWHL standings.
Alex Carpenter replied with the lone goal for last-place Seattle (5-1-2-12).
Hannah Murphy made 19 saves as the Torrent dropped their seventh consecutive game on the road.
Dubois, filling in for Poulin on Montreal’s top line, tapped in a feed from Stacey to open the scoring at 4:17 in the first period. Abby Roque rimmed the puck along the boards for Stacey, who wrapped around the net on her backhand and slid a pass to Dubois.
Stacey doubled the advantage with a short-handed jailbreak goal at 13:02 in the second period, beating Murphy on a breakaway.
Carpenter briefly cut into the lead at 7:56 in the third by sliding home a slick pass from Theresa Schafzahl — making her Torrent debut after being acquired from the Fleet on Monday — but Irving deflected a point shot from Tabin only 64 seconds later to make it 3-1.
Stacey iced the game with an empty-net goal at 19:27.
Takeaways
Victoire: Poulin missed the game with a lower-body injury after exiting Sunday’s loss following a hit from forward Shay Maloney. Poulin favoured her right leg, the same one the Canadian captain hurt during preliminary-round play against Czechia at the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Torrent: Seattle captain Hilary Knight, who’s on long-term injured reserve after playing through a torn medial collateral ligament in one of her knees at the Olympics, and fellow U.S. national team forward Hannah Bilka (upper body, out for season) missed the game.
Key moment
On her short-handed goal, Stacey stripped the puck off Aneta Tejralová, outwaited Murphy on a deke and roofed a shot into the gaping net as the crowd roared.
Key stat
Dubois scored for the first time since burying the winner in Montreal’s quadruple-overtime victory over the Ottawa Charge in Game 2 of semifinals last playoffs to end the longest game in PWHL history.
Up next
Victoire: Play the Ottawa Charge in Winnipeg on Sunday.
Torrent: Visit the Boston Fleet on Saturday.
