Heading into Wednesday night’s game, Montreal was 2-0 against New York this season, winning 5-2 on January 10th and 3-2 on January 16th. New York would start New York native Abigail Levy in search of their first home win and Montreal would start Ann-Renee Desbiens. The spotlight was on Alex Carpenter. Could she continue her goal scoring streak including two consecutive overtime winning goals and be the difference maker again tonight?

2:43 into the first period, the answer would prove to be a resounding yes. Carpenter buried a bomb of a shot on a beautiful feed on the powerplay from Abby Roque to take an early 1-0 lead. Alex Carpenter would strike again with a little over a minute left on the penalty kill, Roque would find Carpenter and she would beat Desbiens to go up 2-0. Facing an early deficit, the resilient Montreal group would battle back and outshoot New York 7-2 in the second period. 16:04 into the second, Tereza Vanisova and Catherine Dubois demonstrated their strong possession game as they cycled the puck on the powerplay and fed it to Laura Stacey, who wasted no time in beating Levy and cutting the deficit to one. Montreal would continue to create offensive scoring chances and be rewarded. 8:29 into the third period Vanisova would flex her playmaking abilities again and find Maureen Murphy to tie it at two. With the most dreaded lead in hockey gone, New York fought the swing of momentum and outshot Montreal 9-6 in the third, yet neither team would score and sudden death followed. In overtime, both goalies shined, Desbiens made a beautiful blocker save on New York and Levy made an incredible glove save on Poulin as well as a blocker save to send it to the shootout. The first two rounds were scoreless until Abby Roque fired a blast, beating Desbiens between the pads. Levy stonewalled Poulin on her second shootout attempt and Carpenter dangled the puck and roofed it under the bar. It all came down to Stacey and Levy. Montreal’s Laura Stacey utilized her skating speed and ability to cut across the crease and deked to her backhand but a sprawling Levy made a split save to rob Stacey and secure the first home win of the season for New York.  

This was a huge win for New York, with Alex Carpenter having another Superstar performance, scoring two goals including a shootout goal and adding to her league leading 14 points. Abby Roque had a strong game with two assists!and Levy got her first victory in the PWHL with a strong performance and a much needed two points. With the shootout loss, Montreal has as many points as number one ranked Minnesota. Desbiens had another strong showing in net, Stacey stood out all over the ice and Vanisova shined with two assists and earned second star of the night.