Undisciplinary Hockey Proves Costly

Poor Penalty-Killing Leads to Big Loss in Stingers Exhibition Opener

SportsAndrew Maggio — Published September 20, 2011

The game marked the opening of what players and coaches alike have been hoping will be a fruitful and promising campaign, but poor penalty killing and a sputtering offense led to Concordia’s downfall.

Despite the beginning of the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec regular season looming just around the corner, long-time head coach Les Lawton wasn’t too concerned about the lopsided outcome.

“We’re still in evaluation mode, so I wasn’t disappointed. I was disappointed in the score but not necessarily in the way we played,” said Lawton. “I thought that we had our moments. They seemed a little more prepared for game action than we did tonight. There was some good individual play out there, but our team play wasn’t very good. But I’m not expecting it to be good at this time of the year.”

Both teams got off to a sloppy start, but after Ottawa was caught with too many players on the ice, the Stingers capitalized on their first power-play of the contest. After setting up camp in Ottawa’s zone, centre Moira Frier put a bouncing puck past Gee-Gees goaltender Kaitlynn Blasco less than five minutes into the opening period.

The lead did not last long, as Ottawa also took advantage of their first power-play opportunity with Brittany Laing serving a penalty for tripping. Carley Porcellato’s shot from the point managed to beat Stingers goaltender Stephanie Peck to tie the game nine minutes into the opening frame.

Discipline continued to be an issue on the Stingers’ side throughout the period. While they did manage to kill off Catherine Rancourt’s tripping penalty, Gee-Gees forward Fanny Desforges made the Stingers pay with a rocket from the point to notch Ottawa’s second power-play goal of the night, this time with Frier serving two minutes for hooking.

The teams went to their locker rooms after the first period with Ottawa having out-shot and out-chanced Concordia.

The Stingers were not about to go down without a fight, and had numerous opportunities during a sequence in the middle of the second period where they had sustained pressure in Ottawa’s zone for several minutes. They were unable to beat Blasco, however, who denied the Stingers any opportunity to pull closer on the scoreboard.

Ottawa began to feed off their goalie’s stellar play, putting the game out of reach at the end of the period with two quick goals from Carling Chown and Jessica Bouchard.

Ottawa went on to add another power-play goal to start the third period, with Desforges putting her second of the night past goaltender Carolanne Lavoie-Pilon, who came on to start the third in relief of Peck. Lavoie-Pilon was one of the bright spots in this one, as she stopped nine of the ten shots thrown her way in the final period, many of which forced her to make difficult saves.

Ottawa finished the night 4-for-6 on the power-play, while the Stingers only managed to get one goal in three opportunities.