Matchday Recap: S01D37
The penultimate regular season matchday. Five upsets. Three overtime games and a shootout. Marc-Antoine Dufresne with a hat trick. Stockholm winning for the third consecutive matchday. And Anchorage and Tokyo both reminding the league, with one matchday left, that they have not finished their business. On commence.
GDL 3 — MTL 6
Seven. The Montréal Maples have now won seven consecutive matchdays, and tonight they did it at El Rincón Perdido against a Guadalajara Gatos side favored at 1.66. Montréal came in at 2.23. Marc-Antoine Dufresne scored a hat trick. C'est incroyable.
The first period set the tone before three minutes had elapsed. Diego Hernández took a penalty at 0:09—nine seconds into the game—and Philippe Dubois followed that with a fight against Camila Flores at 1:54. Coincidental majors. But Dufresne converted the opening power play at 2:41—Jean-François Tremblay with the assist—and Montréal never looked back. Simon Côté added a second at 7:23, Lucas Pelletier feeding him. Another Hernández penalty at 10:14 didn't cost the Djinns, but Dmitri Volkov made it 0-3 at 14:37—Jean-René Bergeron with the pass.
Alejandra Ríos pulled one back for Guadalajara on a power play at 11:05 of the second—Mateo Guzmán with the assist—but Volkov replied at 13:40, Bergeron again threading it. One-four.
The third was Dufresne's. He batted one home at 3:48—Paquette with the assist—and converted another power play at 6:21—Tremblay feeding him again. Two GDL goals from Hernández and Santiago Torres kept the scoreline from being total embarrassment, but the final was 3-6. Dufresne: three goals, two of them on the power play. Bergeron: two assists. Seven in a row.
BUS 3 — SAO 4 (SO)
The Frozen Dock got five periods out of a game that separated these two sides by one cent of odds—Busan Blizzards at 1.90, São Paulo Serpents at 1.91. Thiago Pereira calmly picked the corner in the shootout and that was your answer. Quel match.
Soo-yeon Park opened for Busan at 0:55—Eun-bi Han with the assist—and the building had early energy. Seung-ho Jung doubled it at 6:05 of the second—Yuna Kang with the feed—before Bruno Nascimento pulled São Paulo within one at 9:51, Amanda Barbosa assisting. Hyun-woo Kwon and Juliana Santos fought at 10:19—coincidental majors—and the game had its temper.
The third swung back toward the visitors. Thiago Pereira tied it at 1:47—Rafael Oliveira with the assist. A Dong-wook Yoon penalty at 6:23 and Larissa Souza converted the power play at 7:50—Barbosa with her second assist. Yuna Kang equalized for Busan at 9:20—Hye-jin Choi feeding her—and we had overtime.
The extra period featured a Gustavo Ribeiro–Tae-hyun Lim fight at 11:18 and no goals. Pereira then stepped up in the shootout at 4:31 and didn't miss. São Paulo take the two points. Barbosa: two assists across the night.
MUM 2 — DKR 4
The Dakar Djinns were 1.65 favorites at The Salt Pavilion—Mumbai Monsoons at 2.25—and they held on through a second period that briefly threatened to unravel everything. Khady Bâ with two goals. The Djinns deliver.
The first period was physical and scoreless. Modou Diouf imposing himself early—two significant hits—and Ousmane Diallo picking up a minor. Neither side found the net through twenty minutes.
The second opened up spectacularly. A Priya Sharma penalty at 8:49 and Mariama Cissé converted the power play at 9:13—Cheikh Fall assisting—for Dakar. Bâ added a second at 13:57, Abdoulaye Touré with the helper. Two-nothing. Then Rokhaya Faye took a penalty at 14:09 and Mumbai scored twice in five seconds: Vikram Joshi on the power play at 14:48—Ananya Kulkarni assisting—and Kavya Iyer at 14:53, Kiran Bhatt with the feed. Two-two, a period that went from comfortable to chaos in an instant.
Dakar steadied in the third. Diallo scored at 1:32—Moussa Ndiaye with the assist—and Mamadou Guèye and Bhatt dropped the gloves at 3:28, matching majors. Bâ sealed it at 14:19—Cissé returning the assist. Four-two, and Mumbai couldn't find a third goal through the final minutes. Bâ: two goals. The Djinns take it late and don't let go.
NRB 3 — JBG 1
Three fights, seventeen hits, and all four goals in the second period. The Ochre Reserve produced one of the quietest first and third periods of the matchday, bookending a second period that sorted everything out in twelve minutes. The Nairobi Narwhals were 1.75 favorites. They delivered.
Period 1 was hitting and aggression and nothing on the scoreboard. Mandla Zulu and Amara Osei dropped the gloves at 12:12—matching majors—and the building was primed. An Osei penalty and Kevin Otieno minor left Nairobi shorthanded at various points, and still no goals.
Then the second period exploded. Brian Kipchoge put Nairobi ahead at 0:17—Akinyi Ochieng with the assist, the fastest it can get. Wanjiku Mwangi doubled it at 3:48, Peter Kimani feeding her. Zanele Ndaba pulled one back for Johannesburg at 9:24—Lindiwe Sithole assisting—but Samuel Njoroge closed it for Nairobi at 12:04, Faith Wanjiru with the helper. Three-one.
Zulu and Osei fought again in the third at 1:15—their second meeting of the evening—and Pieter Botha and Moses Okello added a third bout at 10:12. The scoreboard didn't move, though the floor of The Ochre Reserve certainly felt it. Kipchoge and Mwangi: one goal each, the spine of a Narwhals second period that settled the match before anyone had drawn breath.
RIM 3 — USH 1
The Coastal Pavilion hosted a tight game that Rimini controlled from the second period onward. The Ushuaia Undertow opened the scoring—which does not happen often to the Rinklers at home—and then found themselves chasing for the final forty minutes.
Facundo Álvarez put Ushuaia ahead at 1:41—Julieta Ríos with the assist—and The Coastal Pavilion went quiet. Álvarez also found time to fight Sofia Barbieri at 4:26—coincidental majors—and the Undertow held the lead through a physical first period.
Rimini flipped it in the second. Valentina Colombo equalized at 7:33—Matteo Galli with the feed—and Nico De Luca put the Rinklers ahead at 13:18, Barbieri assisting. Then Ríos took a minor at 14:22—a costly one—and Alessandro Conti converted the power play in the opening minute of the third at 0:51, De Luca with his second point of the game. Three-one, and Ushuaia had no answer.
The third was all Rimini managing the lead. De Luca: one goal, one assist. Conti: power play goal. Colombo: goal and two hits. The Rinklers shut the door and kept it closed.
PER 2 — TOK 4
The Tokyo Titans don't stay quiet for long. One matchday after their five-game streak ended, they came to The Red Furnace as 2.11 underdogs against a 1.73 Perth Pyres side and won comfortably. Sakura Shimizu: one goal and three assists. The best individual performance of the matchday.
Eliza Cartwright gave Perth the early lead at 4:43—Sienna Kapoor assisting. Yuki Sato tied it at 11:32, Shimizu with the feed. One-all, a game ready to be decided.
The second period decided it. Callum Reeves put Perth back ahead at 11:47—Cooper Hale assisting. Mio Kobayashi tied it eleven seconds later—Shimizu assisting again—and Yūma Hayashi put Tokyo in front at 14:00, Shimizu with her third assist. Three goals in two and a half minutes. Three-two, Tokyo, and Perth couldn't match it.
Ren Inoue and Mia Thornton fought in the third at 3:11—coincidental majors—and through it all Shimizu scored herself at 10:44—Haruto Nakamura with the assist, returning the favour. Four-two, Tokyo win at The Red Furnace. The Titans have one matchday left to make a statement. Tonight was a preview.
VLA 4 — HAV 3 (OT)
The Last Terminal saw seven goals and four periods before Igor Zaytsev finished it. The Vladivostok Vodkas were 1.80 favorites—Havana at 2.03—and they needed all of overtime to end what became a genuinely tense evening.
Period 1 was goals and penalties in quick succession. Reinier Cruz put Havana ahead at 3:45—Mailén Domínguez assisting—and Artyom Volkov tied it nine seconds later, Nikita Sorokin with the feed. Six combined penalties across the period, and Yoandri Hernández—who'd been penalized himself at 5:21—cashed a power play at 13:28 after Kirill Morozov went to The Sixth, Lisandra Álvarez assisting. One-two Havana after one.
Vladivostok answered in the second. A Claudia Pérez penalty at 0:46 and Yelena Pavlova converted the power play at 2:24—Anastasia Ivanova threading it. Denis Baranov put the Vodkas ahead at 4:36—Darya Kuznetsova assisting. Three-two, VLA.
Havana tied it in the third at 10:37. Dayana Rodríguez—one hit, one goal, quiet and decisive—finished off a Yordanis Sánchez pass. Three-three.
Then Zaytsev at 13:52 of overtime—Ruslan Kozlov with the assist. The Vodkas take it in four periods. The Last Terminal delivered.
MCM 4 — PRA 0
The Remote Range has been unkind to Prague this season, and Matchday 37 was no exception. The McMurdo Monoliths shutout the Prague Phantoms 4-0, calmly and without drama, to end the Phantoms' final road trip with nothing to show. Ingrid Solheim with two goals.
The first period established the pattern. Chris Elliot opened at 7:12—Yumi Takeda with the assist—and Solheim scored at 11:31, Diego Fuentes feeding her. Kofi Mensah served two penalties himself but the Monoliths didn't need to be told to focus. Two-nothing, Prague unable to convert multiple power play opportunities of their own.
The second was goalless and physical. Lars Henriksen and Ingrid Solheim both delivered significant hits. Markéta Polák and Tereza Horáková each took minors. The Phantoms pressed but McMurdo absorbed everything.
Solheim scored again at 1:39 of the third—Natasha Borova with the assist—and Amira Hassan closed it at 5:02, Sven Lindberg with the feed. Four-nothing. Two more Monoliths penalties in the final minutes changed nothing. Solheim: two goals, two hits, the anchor of a performance that never looked in doubt.
STO 4 — WPG 3 (OT)
Three consecutive matchday wins. The Stockholm Sirens—2.18 underdogs tonight at The Still Strait, Winnipeg Wendigos the 1.69 favorites—needed overtime to finish it, but Elin Sjöberg finished it, and the Sirens have found something at the right moment. Magnifique.
The first period was all back-and-forth. Astrid Engström put Stockholm up at 4:05—Klara Åström assisting. A Curtis Favel penalty and Hugo Wikström converted on the power play at 6:03—Sjöberg with the feed. Two-nothing. Then Winnipeg scored twice in thirty seconds: Favel at 13:55—Nicole Flett assisting—and Anna Flett at 14:25—Jake Fehr feeding her. Two-two.
The second went to Winnipeg. Leah Blacksmith put them ahead at 4:19—Fehr with his second assist—and Oscar Söderström and Dylan Fife dropped the gloves at 8:23, coincidental majors, providing heat but no goals.
The third delivered. Anna Flett and Maja Forsberg fought at 7:07—both to The Sixth—and then two Winnipeg penalties in quick succession. Söderström—who'd been fighting earlier—converted the power play at 12:21, Wikström assisting. Three-three, and the building believed.
Sjöberg settled it in overtime at 11:09—Åström threading her second assist. The Sirens on a run. Favel took three minors on the night and still couldn't stop it.
ANC 3 — HEL 2 (OT)
Tara Alexie. Overtime. The Watch Station. The Anchorage Auroras were 2.07 underdogs against a 1.76 Helsinki Howlers side and won in four periods, Alexie scoring the winner at 8:06. This team is not finished.
The first period was scoreless and physical—five hits, two penalties, a building waiting for something to happen. It waited.
The second delivered three goals in twelve minutes. Saara Virtanen put Helsinki ahead at 3:50—Liisa Nieminen assisting. Carlos Medina leveled it for Anchorage at 8:10—Bryce Denison with the feed. Then a Sierra Peters penalty at 13:33 and Niko Mäkelä converted on the power play at 14:34—Elina Heikkinen with the assist. One-two Helsinki after two.
Kira Naluktaq pulled Anchorage level at 11:29 of the third—Alexie with the setup. Paige Riordan and Erik Johansson dropped the gloves at 12:47—coincidental majors—and regulation ended tied.
In overtime, Alexie received a pass from Isaiah Tobin at 8:06 and buried it. Two points the books didn't give them. Naluktaq: one goal, two hits. Alexie: one goal, one assist, the overtime winner—again. The Auroras head into the final matchday on a high note.
Seven straight for Montréal. Three straight for Stockholm. Overtime finales at The Last Terminal, The Still Strait, and The Watch Station. Matchday 37 did not treat the final regular season matchday as a prelude—it treated it as a main event in its own right. One matchday remains. On se voit demain.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 37 occurred. Five results were inconsistent with pre-game expectations. Three games required overtime. One required a shootout. Le Council notes that this is the penultimate matchday of the regular season and has prepared a statement for Matchday 38, which it will deliver at the appropriate time, in the appropriate tone, with the appropriate amount of reluctance. The record has been updated accordingly.