Where the Pride Stand at the Halfway Point
Image Courtesy of Michelle Jay
Season seven’s brought new faces, dominating wins, and heartbreaking losses for the Boston Pride. The weekend series against the Connecticut Whale puts the team just past the halfway point of the season and finally gives us a big enough sample size to evaluate trends. Where has the Pride shined? What are the causes for concern, and where have they just been unlucky?
In The Standings
Third place in the league is not a spot that the Pride’s accustomed to, but that’s where they’ll sit regardless of Sunday’s results against the Whale, now ten points out of second place with two games in hand. Toronto also has a ten-point lead on Boston and will have a game in hand after this weekend. One thing holding the Pride back is their inability to win games in regulation. With the new PHF point system that awards teams three points for regulation wins and two points for overtime wins, the Pride left three precious points on the table by only winning four of their seven wins in regulation.
Another problem for the Pride so far has been strength of schedule. Four postponed games in a row gave the Pride over a month off, and they’ve yet to play the PHF’s last-place team, the Buffalo Beauts. The Six have three regulation wins against the Beauts, and the Whale have two.
Individual Stats
A major part of the Pride’s offensive woes is some bad luck for superstar McKenna Brand, whose shooting at an all-time low. After shooting at 12% last year and 13.8% two years ago, her shooting percentage is at 3.9% this year. While unfortunate, this isn’t uncommon for great goal scorers to go through, and is usually corrected with time. Brand’s continued to be a major contributor, going 2-7-9 in her eleven games this year to place her second in points on the Pride.
The Pride’s point leader, captain Jillian Dempsey, sits at a tie for ninth in the league for points with ten in eleven games played. Dempsey also leads the team in goals, but right behind her is sophomore player Taylor Wenczkowski. After scoring her first goal in the Isobel Cup final to clinch the championship, she’s exploded for five goals thus far and is averaging four shots per game. Wenczkowski is one of fourteen different goal scorers the Pride’s seen this year.
Goaltending has been the Pride’s strongest asset. Katie Burt is second in the league with a stellar .949 save percentage and 1.65 goals-against average. Lovisa Selander has had some ups and downs in a new backup role, but has still helped the team to 2 wins and sports a .894 save percentage in four games started. Victoria Hanson has started once and coming in as relief once, only allowing 2 goals against in the 44 shots she faced in her limited time. While Burt (who’s started 6 games) and Selander are the main tandem, Hanson’s ability to step in and put up a great performance despite long stretches off has been a major weapon for this team.
Team Stats
As of February fifth, the Pride are the least penalized team in the league with 82 PIM in 11 games played. However, penalties are almost a good thing for the Pride this year, who have more short-handed goals (four) than they have power play goals (two.) The power play has been the biggest issue for the Pride, who not only have a league worst .043 power play percentage, but are actively giving the opponents an advantage short handed and have allowed three goals against during their power play. The penalty kill, despite the shorthanded goals, has also struggled with a .895 kill percentage that places them fourth in the league. Special teams have proven to be the decider in several important games. The game-winning goal for Minnesota in their 2-0 defeat of the Pride was a short-handed goal, and history repeated on Saturday night when Connecticut scored shorthanded to break the tie and win 3-2.
The offense has been more subdued than previous years, averaging 2.8 goals per game, but the team has made up for it with strong defense and goaltending. The most goals the team has allowed in one game is four, and that’s only happened twice. All but one game this season has been decided by two or fewer goals, something a result both of offensive struggles and increased league parity.