Matchday Recap: S01D36
Five upsets. Luca Ferretti with a hat trick on the losing side. Montréal with their sixth consecutive win, still as the underdog. Tokyo's five-matchday run ended—quietly, bluntly, at home. And Ushuaia came back from a first-period deficit of three goals to win. Bienvenue dans le chaos.
MTL 4 — BUS 3
Six. Six consecutive matchday wins. The Busan Blizzards were 1.67 favorites at The Oldest Rink, Montréal at 2.21. The Maples won anyway. I'm not sure what odds I'd give them at this point.
Jean-François Tremblay opened at 1:29—Marc-Antoine Dufresne with the assist—and a first-period fight between Min-jun Lee and Dmitri Volkov at 7:22—coincidental majors—changed nothing. Élodie Gagnon added the second at 10:23 off an Alexandre Paquette feed. Two-nothing after one, and The Oldest Rink was alive.
Busan pulled it level in the second. Jae-won Kim at 3:56—Lee with the helper. Sang-hoon Bae at 7:57—Ji-eun Shin with the assist. Two-two, and everything Montréal had built was suddenly contested.
The third was all Maples. Chloé Moreau at 1:11—Amélie Bouchard threading it. Sarah-Maude Fortin at 11:37—Paquette with his second assist of the game—and The Oldest Rink had the cushion it needed. Shin cut it to 4-3 at 14:21—Tae-hyun Lim assisting—but time ran out. Paquette: two assists, two hits, and the invisible thread connecting everything. Fortin: one goal, three hits. Six in a row. Write it down again.
DKR 3 — GDL 2 (SO)
The Sandy Parlor hosted a five-period game between two sides separated by one cent of odds—Dakar Djinns at 1.90, Guadalajara Gatos at 1.91—and in the end Moussa Ndiaye delivered the shootout winner with 29 seconds left on the clock. Quel match.
Valentina Ramírez put Guadalajara ahead thirty-three seconds into the game—Diego Hernández with the assist—and The Sandy Parlor had that early energy. The Djinns absorbed it. Mamadou Guèye equalized at 5:48 of the second—Khady Bâ with the feed. Then the game traded power play goals: Rodrigo Vargas for Guadalajara at 9:57 off a Daniela Salazar pass, and Moussa Ndiaye for Dakar at 11:13, Aminata Sow with the assist. Two-two, two teams matching each other at every turn.
The third was quiet—one Cheikh Fall penalty, fourteen hits, no goals. Overtime likewise. No goals, five hits, and a Sofía Navarro minor that the Djinns couldn't convert.
In the shootout, Ndiaye stepped up at 5:31 and ended it. Dakar deserved it as much as anyone. Sometimes the building decides these things.
SAO 4 — NRB 0
The São Paulo Serpents shutout the Nairobi Narwhals 4-0 at The Green Canopy and made it look routine. Favored at 1.85 against a 1.96 visiting side, they produced their biggest performance in weeks: three goals in the first period before the Narwhals had found their rhythm, and a fourth to close it out.
Felipe Carvalho opened at 2:02—Juliana Santos with the assist. Rafael Oliveira added a second at 6:41—Gustavo Ribeiro feeding him. Carvalho struck again at 12:13—Camila Ferreira with the helper. Three-nothing after one period, and the Narwhals were already in damage control.
The second was physical and goalless. Peter Kimani with two hits on Serpents forwards, Faith Wanjiru another. Nairobi tried hard and produced nothing.
Ferreira took a penalty in the third at 2:26, and Larissa Souza converted the advantage at 2:41—Amanda Barbosa with the assist. Lucas Almeida and Wanjiku Mwangi dropped the gloves at 9:38—coincidental majors—and that was the last thing to settle. Carvalho: two goals, two hits, the spine of everything. São Paulo deliver a clean sheet.
USH 6 — MUM 5
The South Passage hosted eleven goals and one of the most remarkable first-period collapses and recoveries of the season. Ushuaia were 1.54 favorites. They trailed 1-4 after twenty minutes. They won 6-5. C'est incroyable.
Mumbai scored four times in the first. Arjun Patil at 2:13—Rahul Nair assisting—then Florencia Ramos answered on a power play at 6:08, Vikram Joshi's penalty the gift. But Patil struck again at 7:15—Kiran Bhatt with the helper—and Divya Mehta at 13:18 and Priya Sharma at 14:59 put the Monsoons up 1-4. Four goals, one minute apart at the end, and The South Passage did not know what to make of any of it.
Then Ushuaia scored three times in the first five minutes of the second. Julieta Ríos at 1:49—Martina Vega assisting. Matías Fernández at 2:42—Facundo Álvarez with the feed. Tomás Peralta at 5:03—Camila Aguirre setting it up. Four-four, and Florencia Ramos added a fight with Vikram Joshi at 12:59 for emphasis—both off for five.
Ríos converted a power play at 0:19 of the third—Aguirre assisting, Nair's penalty from the final second of the second period the trigger—to give Ushuaia the lead. Peralta extended it to 6-4 at 12:20. Nair closed it to 6-5 at 13:51, Mehta assisting. But there was no fourth period. Ríos: two goals. Peralta: two goals. Patil: two goals, and the wrong team. A game that shouldn't have been close and was never anything else.
JBG 2 — PER 5
Perth came to Die Goue Myn as 1.77 favorites against a 2.06 Johannesburg Jaguars side and won with authority in the third period, after a tense first forty minutes that could have gone either way. Jack Mitchell decided the game. He scored twice.
The first period was even. Zanele Ndaba put the Jaguars ahead at 8:11—Thandiwe Radebe with the assist—and Riley Dawson equalized at 10:44, Gemma Fletcher with the feed. One-all, Perth and Johannesburg feeling each other out through nine penalties across the game.
The second tightened further. Ndaba scored her second of the night at 4:03—Lerato Dlamini assisting—to put Johannesburg back in front. Eliza Cartwright leveled it on a power play at 9:21—Zara Patel with the feed, Mandla Zulu's penalty the opening. Two-two at the horn.
Mitchell then took over in the third. A power play goal at 1:13—Sienna Kapoor assisting—and another at 5:00—Patel this time. Liam O'Brien closed it at 10:39, Oscar Whitfield with the helper. Five-two. Perth score three in nine minutes and the Jaguars had no response. Ndaba finished with two goals and three hits—outstanding from a losing side. Mitchell: two goals in eight minutes.
HAV 6 — RIM 5
Luca Ferretti scored a hat trick. Havana won anyway. The Havana Hammers were 2.19 underdogs against a Rimini Rinklers side at 1.68—and they won 6-5 in a game that asked whether a hat trick in a losing cause is still a hat trick. It is. Ferretti is magnificent. Havana are a problem.
Period 1 was Rimini's. Ferretti at 2:05—Marco Rossetti assisting—and again at 6:40, Giulia Bianchi with the feed. Two-nothing, and The Rhythm Bureau was quiet. Then Reinier Cruz found one back for Havana at 14:15—Yarelys González assisting. One-two.
The second was extraordinary. Yoandri Hernández tied it at 1:07—Adonis Reyes assisting. Ferretti put Rimini back ahead at 2:31—Rossetti with his second assist of the game—hat trick complete before three minutes of the second period had elapsed. Then Dayana Rodríguez at 6:12, Claudia Pérez assisting. González at 7:01, Reyes with his second helper. Yanelis Peña at 8:20—Orlando Machado with the feed. Three Havana goals in two and a half minutes. Five-three, a lead that felt definitive.
It wasn't. Bianchi cut it to 5-4 at 7:39 of the third—Nico De Luca with the assist—and Alessandro Conti tied it at 8:08, Lorenzo Fabbri threading the pass. Five-five, and The Rhythm Bureau went electric. Then Cruz scored at 11:14—Pérez with her second assist—and this time the lead held. Ferretti: three goals. Havana: six. The Rinklers couldn't hold a team that simply refused to lose.
TOK 1 — MCM 3
Five matchdays. That's how long Tokyo's winning run lasted. The McMurdo Monoliths arrived at The Neon Crossing as 1.79 road favorites and ended the Titans' streak in a manner that left little room for debate: controlled defending, seventeen hits, and three unanswered goals before Haruto Nakamura got one back.
Kofi Mensah put the Monoliths ahead at 1:58 of the first—Tobias Frey with the assist—and then McMurdo spent the period absorbing five Tokyo and McMurdo penalties while protecting the lead. Mio Kobayashi was checked four separate times by different Monoliths in the first period alone. The Neon Crossing was not going to be easy.
The second brought a Diego Fuentes power play goal at 9:43—Amira Hassan with the assist—after Tokyo burned two minors of their own. Two-nothing, and The Neon Crossing was quiet.
Ji-hoon Baek added the third at 11:58 of the third—Priya Anand assisting, Baek finishing with three hits on the night. Nakamura got one back at 12:35—Yuki Sato with the helper—but it was too late and too little. McMurdo win three-one. Baek: one goal, three hits, the most physical presence of the evening. Tokyo's streak is over. The Titans will have to start again.
WPG 0 — VLA 3
The Vladivostok Vodkas came to The Cold Lodge as 2.09 underdogs against a 1.75 Winnipeg Wendigos side and shutout them. After what Winnipeg did to Dakar three matchdays ago, that number means something. Three different Vodkas scorers. Not a goal allowed.
Leah Blacksmith and Artyom Volkov dropped the gloves at 0:29—twenty-nine seconds in, coincidental majors—and The Cold Lodge had the energy of a team that expected to dominate. It didn't happen. Yelena Pavlova took a minor at 7:21 that Winnipeg couldn't convert. No goals through one.
Tatiana Novikova struck at 0:35 of the second—Maxim Petrov with the assist. Volkov took a penalty at 7:13 but Vladivostok killed it. Darya Kuznetsova added the second at 12:45—Volkov assisting despite having been the one fighting in the first period.
Jake Fehr took a penalty at 2:19 of the third and Pavlova converted on the power play at 3:21—Anastasia Ivanova with the feed. Three-nothing. Anna Flett finished with four hits in the final five minutes, which is the hockey equivalent of slamming a door on your way out. Vladivostok hold the shutout. Winnipeg, who scored ten goals on this same ice not long ago, were held scoreless.
PRA 3 — ANC 4
The Anchorage Auroras are back. The Prague Phantoms were 1.76 favorites at The Stone Opera—Anchorage at 2.08—and the Auroras produced exactly the kind of disciplined, late-game comeback that has defined their best nights this season. Mason Kluane with two goals. Carlos Medina deciding it on a power play.
Both sides scored twice in the first period. Kluane opened at 2:35—Isaiah Tobin with the assist. Martin Procházka tied it at 3:59—Markéta Polák assisting. Polák scored herself at 6:28—Barbora Králová with the feed. Jake Hensley leveled it on a power play at 10:17—Medina with the assist, Jakub Černý's penalty the opening. Two-all after a period that scored four goals in nine minutes and then stopped.
The second was scoreless and physical. Five more hits, five more minutes of neither side blinking.
The third belonged to Anchorage. Procházka took a minor at 8:08 and Medina converted the power play at 10:20—Kira Naluktaq with the assist. Two-three. Kluane scored his second at 13:58—Paige Riordan with the feed. Two-four, and though Polák pulled one back at 14:59—Králová threading her second assist of the night—the horn sounded before Prague could tie it. Kluane: two goals. Polák: two goals, one assist—and still on the losing side.
HEL 2 — STO 5
The Stockholm Sirens have won back-to-back matchdays. They were 2.13 underdogs at The Dark Sauna—Helsinki at 1.72—and they produced five goals across three periods with the efficiency of a team that has found something. Axel Lindqvist with two assists. The building never found an answer.
Maja Forsberg opened at 0:33—Lindqvist with the assist—and then Filip Nyström added a second at 5:34, Lindqvist threading his second pass of the period. Zero-two before Helsinki had exhaled.
The second saw Elin Sjöberg extend Stockholm's lead further at 1:11—Saga Ekström assisting. Helsinki responded: Saara Virtanen took a minor at 3:20 and Astrid Engström converted on the power play at 5:46—Klara Åström with the feed. Then Albin Nordlund took a minor at 13:00 and Anniina Tuominen capitalized on the power play at 14:52—Petteri Salonen assisting. One-four, and Helsinki had only penalties to show for a period of effort.
Tuominen and Nyström dropped the gloves at 1:37 of the third—coincidental majors—and Lucas Bredberg scored at 8:40, Engström with the helper. Nordlund took another penalty at 13:37 and Elina Heikkinen converted at 14:59—Erik Johansson assisting. Two-five. Stockholm take it cleanly. The Sirens are finding form at exactly the right time.
Five upsets, a comeback from three goals down at The South Passage, Ferretti's hat trick in a losing effort, and Tokyo's streak on the floor at The Neon Crossing. Montréal keep winning as underdogs—six now. Stockholm keep winning as underdogs—two straight. I'll be back for Matchday 37, which is the second-to-last regular season matchday, which means whatever I write tonight may already be obsolete.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 36 occurred. Five results were inconsistent with pre-game expectations. Le Council notes that the Montréal Maples have won six consecutive matchdays, all as the odds-on underdog, a fact Le Council is currently logging in a separate filing system labeled "Things Le Council Was Not Prepared For." The record has been updated accordingly.