After a feisty 60 minute battle of neutral site hockey, the visitors remained perfect with a 6-2 victory – and significantly fewer penalty minutes.
Coming into season three’s first meeting between the Metropolitan Riveters and the Buffalo Beauts, both teams entered the contest as undefeated adversaries, each 1-0 on their respective seasons. Buffalo played host to the contest at Rochester’s Bill Gray’s Regional Iceplex, and the Riveters were looking to settle a score after being eliminated from last season’s Isobel Cup Playoffs by the Beauts, on their own home ice.
In front of a packed arena of young fans from all across North America (many attending the Fire on Ice Tournament), the tone was set early on in the first period. Metro’s Alexa Gruschow notched the first tally on a shorthanded opportunity, charging into the Buffalo zone and stretching around goaltender Amanda Leveille just under the three minute mark. The Beauts answered in just over a minute, with Corinne Buie (last season’s league leader in power play goals) taking full advantage of a pass from Hayley Scamurra on the power play to even things up on the scoreboard at one.
As the period continued, Rebecca Russo and the Riveters began to showcase some of their deadly speed, testing the Buffalo defense for another crack at Leveille’s net. With eight minutes of penalty time, the Beauts found themselves in their own end and blocking several shots before the first 20 minutes had elapsed. Metro showed composure on the power play but the teams remained locked at one for the remainder of the period.
After wearing down the Buffalo penalty killers with so much of the first period on the man advantage, it was only a matter of time before the Riveters broke through. Returning to the ice, Buffalo won the initial faceoff, but the Riveters immediately recovered the puck and still within the first minute of period two, Miye D’Oench buried a pass from Courtney Burke to put the visitors up by one. With the Riveters now up by a goal, the momentum began to shift.
Not unlike the opening period, penalty trouble seemed to be the name of the game, and only seconds after D’Oench’s goal, Maddie Elia and Erika Lawler squared off at the faceoff dot and were sent to the box to serve time for roughing. Although the teams killed off the 4-on-4 situation, in the third minute of the period, Buffalo found itself shorthanded again – twice, with fouls being awarded to Buie and Sarah Casorso. The next whistle would send Lawler to the Riveter box creating a four on three situation for Metro. Again, the Riveters made a strong campaign on the advantage with rookie Jenny Ryan showing her control down low in the attacking zone and Kelsey Koelzer (the late addition to last season’s pre-playoff roster) blasting shots from the point, just outside of Leveille’s glove. Buffalo remained composed defensively through the penalty kills and maintained the one goal differential until the teams returned to full strength and Bray Ketchum found Gruschow on a fast two on one break to be stymied by Leveille, but on a quick rebound recovery found a way to beat the Buffalo netminder and put the Riveters up by two.
The teams continued to battle, but with two additional penalties to the Beauts late in the period, a power play goal from Koelzer off of a slap shot from the left point beat Leveille under the crossbar and stretched Metro’s lead to three goals to close out the second.
Mirroring the previous period, Metro opened the third frame on the power play and opened fire on Leveille and the Buffalo defense at every opportunity with repeated attacks from Ryan, Koelzer and Gruschow. Riveters’ Tatiana Rafter also made several strong campaigns to goal but was held at bay by the Buffalo netminder and her shot-blocking teammates. In the sixth minute, the penalty parade began yet again, when only seconds apart, the Riveters found themselves two players down and opening the door for Jess Jones to connect with Taylor Accursi down low in the Metro zone for Buffalo’s second of the night.
Metro would find two more opportunities on the night to light the lamp – on a power play goal from their signature speedster Russo and a second goal by Koelzer, making the Riveters the only undefeated club in the league as teams begin to look toward their third contest next week. But despite an eight goal game, the story of the night was repeatedly interrupted by an unusual and outrageous 28 penalties – not penalty minutes, but penalties. With each infraction, tensions continued to rise on the ice and every contact was under the microscope, disrupting the otherwise fast paced, physical and exciting matchup.
“I’m not very speechless very often,” Buffalo Co-coach Craig Muni noted after the game “there were so many penalties, I don’t even know what the final tally was.” Muni cited the big and physical nature of the Buffalo team’s game as something that often can be an asset, despite how things shook out in the penalty time that transpired in this particular contest.
Buie, the newly appointed Beauts captain echoed a similar sentiment “It really did get out of hand there,” she remarked, “it’s not the hockey that we want to play or that we want to show the fans.” But despite the circumstances, Buie and the Beauts do not want to dwell on the loss and are ready to think ahead to next weeknd’s homestand against the Boston Pride. “We know they’re a skilled team; hopefully we can have more flow to the game,” she asserted. “They’re going to be skilled, we know some of their players so we’ll do the best we can to regroup and keep working on our game plan.”
Next weekend the Beauts will raise their Isobel Cup Championship banner at the Buffalo HarborCenter against the Pride, while the still undefeated Riveters will take on the Connecticut Whale who are out to an impressive start on the other side of the league. There is a lot of hockey yet to be played, but the competition is heating up early and will certainly make for a tight race in this initial stretch of the season.
