Matchday Recap: S01D38
Ten games. Ten overtime periods. All of them. The regular season did not go quietly—it went kicking and fighting until every last point was decided past regulation. The Triple Or Nothin modifier had something to say about how this evening would go, and the league answered. Four upsets. Five shootouts. One final matchday that earned the name. Voilà la saison régulière.
MTL 2 — SAO 1 (SO)
Eight. Eight consecutive matchday wins. The São Paulo Serpents arrived at The Oldest Rink as 1.66 favorites—Montréal at 2.23—and Philippe Dubois decided it in the shootout at 8:31 of the fifth period. The Maples are something this league has never fully prepared for.
The first period established the evening's character within seconds. Jean-François Tremblay hit Felipe Carvalho at 0:28, then took a penalty at 1:09. Catherine Lavoie put Montréal ahead at 7:09—Sarah-Maude Fortin with the setup—and Rafael Oliveira answered for São Paulo at 8:20, Carvalho threading the feed. One-all. Within a minute Oliveira and Fortin had dropped the gloves—coincidental majors at 11:43. Fortin had already delivered three hits. Chloé Moreau added three more across the evening. The Oldest Rink was not interested in subtlety.
The next three periods were goalless and grinding. Both sides pressed, both sides hit, neither scored. Isabela Costa's penalty at 14:08 of overtime gave Montréal a late chance they couldn't convert. The shootout answered everything: Dubois, composed as you please, put it away at 8:31. Eight consecutive matchday wins, all as underdogs, all earned, all real. C'est incroyable.
GDL 3 — MUM 2 (OT)
Sofía Navarro opened it and closed it. The Guadalajara Gatos were 1.59 favorites at El Rincón Perdido—Mumbai at 2.37—and Navarro scored twice, including the overtime winner at 12:11 off a Carlos Morales feed. Twenty-three combined hits. One fight. A game decided by the player who took it upon herself to decide it.
Navarro set the tone immediately—a crunching hit on Rohan Deshmukh at 1:11 and the opening goal at 4:10, Andrés Rojas with the assist. Both teams hit and pressed through the first. Divya Mehta equalized for Mumbai at 11:48 of the second—Kavya Iyer threading it—and the building reset.
The third opened with violence. Rojas and Vikram Joshi dropped the gloves at 0:24—coincidental majors at 0:27—and with Iyer also off at 0:42, Guadalajara had a power play. Daniela Salazar buried it at 1:21—Diego Hernández assisting—and Salazar added three hits on the night for good measure. Priya Sharma tied it for Mumbai at 11:18—Arjun Patil feeding her—and overtime was where it had to go. Navarro ended it at 12:11. Two goals, two hits. C'est tout ce qu'il faut.
JBG 2 — BUS 3 (SO)
Four fights, ten penalties, and five periods before Seung-ho Jung stepped forward at 4:31 of the shootout. Die Goue Myn hosted one of the scrappiest games of the matchday, and the Busan Blizzards—1.78 favorites—held on despite Johannesburg refusing to be put away cleanly.
The first period announced its intentions at 0:20, when Jae-won Kim and Pieter Botha dropped the gloves before anything else had happened. Coincidental majors. The building knew what kind of evening it was in for. Botha opened the scoring in the second at 2:14—Sipho Nkosi assisting—then Mandla Zulu and Eun-bi Han fought at 5:57 and through the chaos Soo-yeon Park tied it at 9:20, Min-jun Lee with the setup. Han put Busan ahead at 13:43, Kim assisting. Johannesburg was a goal down going into the third.
Lindiwe Sithole tied it at 2:46—Naledi Khumalo with the helper—and neither team could find a winner through a turbulent overtime that opened with Thabo Mokoena and Hyun-woo Kwon fighting at 1:32. Jung settled it in the shootout. Busan take two points from five periods of earned attrition.
DKR 2 — RIM 3 (SO)
Dakar led 2-0 after one period. Lorenzo Fabbri pulled one back in the third. Nico De Luca tied it. Fabbri then won the shootout. The Rimini Rinklers do not concede leads—they defer them.
The Sandy Parlor opened with energy. Mamadou Guèye and Francesca Serra fought at 8:20—coincidental majors—and within the final ninety seconds of the period, the Djinns scored twice. Modou Diouf at 13:46—Ibrahima Sarr assisting—and Rokhaya Faye batted one out of the air at 14:41, Diouf with his second point. Two-nothing, and Rimini had work to do.
They pressed through the second and found nothing. Then Fabbri at 3:30 of the third—Marco Rossetti threading it—cut it to one. De Luca tied it at 10:44—Chiara Ricci with the setup. Overtime brought more hitting, a Giulia Bianchi penalty at 0:29, and no goals. In the shootout, Fabbri—who had scored the comeback goal—stepped to the dot and put it past the goalie. Diouf finished with a goal, an assist, and two hits. A fine losing performance in a game Dakar controlled for forty minutes and Rimini won in five.
TOK 3 — NRB 2 (OT)
The Tokyo Titans finished the regular season with one more statement. The Nairobi Narwhals came to The Neon Crossing as 1.80 favorites—Tokyo at 2.02—and Shūta Tanaka put it away in overtime at 12:30, Haruto Nakamura with the assist. Five wins in the last seven matchdays. Whatever was said about this Tokyo team in September, revise it.
Shimizu scored at 4:09—Yuki Sato assisting—and Ren Inoue added the second at 5:05, Aoi Yamamoto with the feed. Two-nothing before Nairobi had found their footing. Wanjiku Mwangi cut it to 2-1 in the second at 10:08—James Odhiambo with the setup—and Moses Okello tied it at 9:35 of the third, Odhiambo picking up his second assist of the night. Two-all into overtime.
No fights across the evening. Eighteen combined hits, clean and competitive. Tanaka received the pass from Nakamura at 12:30 and buried it. Mwangi finished with a goal and two hits—the thread of Nairobi's push that came up just short. Tokyo's regular season ends in overtime, with a win, with everyone watching.
USH 2 — VLA 1 (OT)
The South Passage needed four periods to separate two teams that spent much of the evening trading penalties rather than goals. The Ushuaia Undertow—1.81 favorites—got the result when Tomás Peralta converted at 14:07 of overtime, Valentina Giménez with the assist. Magnifique.
The first period was eight hits and no goals, both teams probing and neither finishing despite a Florencia Ramos penalty that cost nothing. The second was penalty-dense. Yelena Pavlova, Facundo Álvarez, Denis Baranov, Darya Kuznetsova, Santiago Figueroa—all to The Sixth in sequence. Agustín Medina and Vera Orlova fought at 12:59—coincidental majors—and two seconds later Giménez scored at 13:31, Camila Aguirre with the assist. One-nothing.
Vladivostok didn't fold. Figueroa took a penalty at 12:38 of the third, and Artyom Volkov converted on the power play with the final second of regulation at 14:59—Anastasia Ivanova assisting. One-all. In overtime, Peralta drove Morozov into the boards at 9:57 and then at 14:07—with the period nearly exhausted—put it past the goalie, Giménez returning the favour. Three hits on the night. Peralta does not leave a game half-finished.
PRA 1 — PER 2 (OT)
The closest odds on the board—Prague at 1.94, Perth at 1.87—produced a close game Perth ultimately won on a power play in overtime. Tahlia Nguyen converted at 12:41 of the fourth period, Gemma Fletcher with the assist. The Stone Opera stayed tight all night and gave its answer to the last possible moment.
Mia Thornton opened it in the first at 6:00—Oscar Whitfield assisting—and Perth led going into the second. David Růžička delivered two significant hits in the middle period while Markéta Polák tied it at 8:39—Tereza Horáková with the setup. One-all, and both teams held through a third period that produced three Prague penalties in the final four minutes—Kateřina Dvořáková, Pavel Krejčí twice—and no goals.
Adam Fiala took the decisive penalty in overtime at 12:16. Nguyen fired home at 12:41. Perth close their regular season with two points from a game that was always going to be decided by something small, in a building that rarely allows anything large.
HAV 3 — STO 2 (OT)
Adonis Reyes scored at 0:25—twenty-five seconds in. Elin Sjöberg fought Lázaro Valdés in overtime. Yoandri Hernández settled it at 11:32 of the fourth period with a Yarelys González assist. The Rhythm Bureau ended Stockholm's three-matchday winning run in four periods and three fights, and the Havana Hammers—1.84 favorites—earned every point of it.
The first twenty minutes belonged to Havana. Reyes at 0:25, Valdés with the setup. González at 11:43, Reinier Cruz feeding her. Two-nothing, and The Rhythm Bureau was alive. Wikström cut it to 2-1 for Stockholm at 13:55 of the second—Saga Ekström assisting—and the Sirens believed again.
Wikström tied it nine seconds into the third—Klara Åström setting it up—and then the final two minutes became chaos. Osmany Leyva and Åström fought at 14:04; Lisandra Álvarez and Albin Nordlund followed at 14:25. Four players to The Sixth in ninety seconds. In overtime, Valdés hit Sjöberg at 7:46 and they dropped the gloves themselves—both off for five—and then Hernández scored at 11:32 with nothing but net to show for a four-period evening. C'est la vie, Stockholm.
HEL 1 — MCM 2 (SO)
Five cents of odds separated these two—Helsinki at 1.88, McMurdo at 1.93—and Sven Lindberg settled it from the shootout dot at 7:31. The Dark Sauna produced one fight, a goal in the second period from each side, and then nothing until the shootout told us what we needed to know.
Kofi Mensah set The Dark Sauna's temperature: four hits in the first period and a fight with Aleksi Korhonen at 13:16—coincidental majors. No goals, but the building knew. The second opened with a Hassan penalty and, twenty-two seconds later, Ingrid Solheim's goal—Lars Henriksen assisting. One-nothing McMurdo. Elina Heikkinen tied it for Helsinki at 5:14 of the third—Niko Mäkelä with the assist—and both sides held through a quiet overtime. One hit from Mäkelä. No goals. The shootout was the only answer, and Lindberg gave it. McMurdo close the regular season by winning a five-period game in the coldest sauna in Hockay.
WPG 3 — ANC 4 (SO)
Anchorage. Again. The Winnipeg Wendigos were 1.65 favorites at The Cold Lodge—Anchorage at 2.25—and Jake Hensley decided it from the shootout dot at 5:31. Three fights. Fourteen penalties. Six regulation goals, three apiece. And another result the books did not see coming to close the regular season. The Auroras refuse to be what anyone says they are.
Sierra Peters put Anchorage up at 13:10 of the first—Isaiah Tobin assisting—after Cody Tulik and Nicole Flett dropped the gloves to announce what kind of evening this would be. The second was relentless. Tyler Chicken tied it at 2:31 for Winnipeg—Brody Flett assisting. Marissa Spence converted a power play at 8:47, Anna Flett setting it up—Wendigos ahead. Levi Simmonds answered at 9:21, Paige Riordan threading it. Two-all.
The third brought more of the same. Tara Alexie scored at 2:19—Bryce Denison with the feed—before Chicken tied it again at 6:58, Leah Blacksmith assisting. Brendan Fehr and Simmonds fought at 13:48; Nicole Flett and Heather Braund followed at 14:53. Overtime brought hits and penalties and nothing else. Hensley stepped to the dot and ended the Wendigos' regular season at 5:31. Chicken finished with two goals and two hits—the finest performance on the wrong side of a shootout. Quel match.
Ten games. Ten overtimes. Not one of them resolved in regulation—not on the last night of the regular season of Hockay, not with everything still at stake, not with The Ice watching.
Montréal finished with eight consecutive wins. Anchorage closed the books with one more upset nobody expected. Tokyo ends with momentum it didn't have at the start of the month. And somewhere between the final horn and wherever comes next, the Jambono resurfaced the ice and the season changed its shape entirely.
The playoffs begin. I'll see you there.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Matchday 38 occurred. All ten games required overtime to resolve. Le Council notes that this is, statistically, improbable, and has chosen not to investigate why. Le Council prepared a statement for the conclusion of the regular season, which it will now deliver: the regular season has concluded. Four results were inconsistent with pre-game expectations, including the Montréal Maples winning their eighth consecutive matchday as the statistical underdog, a fact Le Council is filing under "Things We Have Stopped Being Surprised By." The Jambono has resurfaced. Things are different now. Le Council apologizes. The record has been updated accordingly. Playoff brackets will be released in due course, with the appropriate amount of institutional gravitas and reluctance.