Ottawa’s Professional Women’s Hockey League team was better than New York for 54 minutes and 54 seconds but that wasn’t enough.
Alex Carpenter scored her second goal of the game at 2:12 of the overtime period to complete an impressive comeback by New York for a 4-3 win in Ottawa. The visitors had trailed 3-0 with just over five minutes remaining in regulation.
"I think the belief in our room is so strong and it finally showed today," said Carpenter. "We’ve lost a couple and this feels good for us.
"This is finally what all of our hard work has been and how close this team has been."
Abby Roque and Jade Downie-Landry also scored third period goals for New York (2-2-1-4). Corinne Schroeder made 39 saves for the win.
Ottawa (2-0-4-1) opened the scoring in the first at 7:37. Ottawa had just missed on a great chance but then Emily Clark found Aneta Tejralova at the blue line and fired a shot past Schroeder for her first of the season.
Ottawa continued to dictate the pace and appeared to take a 2-0 lead on a delayed penalty call late in the second period when Daryl Watts but the puck in the net, but it was ruled the whistle had been blown before her shot crossed the goal line.
The home team took a 2-0 lead control in the third when Ottawa when Hayley Scamurra created a turnover and found Lexie Adzija, who beat Schroeder five-hole for her team-leading fifth goal of the season. Savannah Harmon made it 3-0 midway through the period and then it was all New York.
“I think once they got one goal we lost a little bit of momentum,” said Adzija. “I think going forward we just have to try to keep our energy up on the bench so that we can fight back when that happens.”
Roque got New York on the board at 14:54 when she got behind Ottawa’s D and beat an outstretched Maschmeyer. Downie-Landry cut the lead to one 44 seconds later.
New York completed the comeback with Carpenter scoring a power-play goal off a cross-crease pass from Roque.
“The one thing that I love about our team is I don’t think at any point did I feel we felt defeated,” said New York coach Howie Draper. “We’ve proven before that we’re a resilient team and we did it again tonight.”
There was no denying the loss stung for Ottawa, who has yet to find a way to win in overtime this season going 0-4 in extra time.
“Seven games in you’re going to have these moments,” said Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod. “For us right now overtime is just a bit of a hurdle that we’ll obviously work through.”
While her team was clearly disappointed by the result MacLeod said there was much to learn from Sunday’s game.
“Sometimes these ones that sting, we’ve had other games with similar outcome that didn’t sting the same, but you just have to let the sting settle,” she said. “I think that’s why we’re all fierce competitors and that’s why we’re in this industry.
"You’re going to be on the good side of some of those and you’re going to be on the bad side of some of them.”
This was the first of four games between the two teams.
NOTES — The game featured the league’s top two power plays. Ottawa (6-for-20) is first and New York (5-of-24) ranks second. The PWHL schedule will pause after this weekend’s games for an IIHF International Break, with action resuming on Feb. 14.
UP NEXT — Ottawa heads to Minnesota Wednesday, Feb. 14
New York will travel to Boston Saturday, Feb. 17
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2024.
Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press
