Torrent win second straight

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The Seattle Torrent, the newest team in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, might not be too bad after all.

After losing their first two games, not an atypical start for an expansion team, the Torrent won their second consecutive game against an established squad last night at Climate Pledge Arena.

In fact, the Torrent were pretty much in control as they recorded a 4-1 decision against the Ottawa Charge. The Torrent are now 2-0-1-1 on the season while Ottawa drops to 1-0-0-5.

To be fair, the Charge played in Vancouver last night (back-to-backs are a rarity in the PWHL) while the Torrent have been idle for two weeks (although several Torrent players competed in the just concluded Rivalry Series).

Rookie Sanni Ahola manned the net for Ottawa in her PWHL debut (she also became the first Finnish goalie to compete in the league) but she wasn’t the problem for the Charge as she stopped 20 of 23 shots, but the Torrent capitalized on two power plays.

Hannah Murphy stopped 24 of 25 shots between the pipes for Seattle. Murphy was also the winning goalie in Seattle’s first-ever victory against the New York Siren, two weeks ago. Murphy, who played at Colgate University last season, becomes the first goalie to come into the league as a rookie, and win her first two games.

Meanwhile, the Torrent’s top line of Alex Carpenter-Hilary Kinght-Julia Gosling, combined for three goals and seven points in the win. Gosling who had the first two goals in Torrent history, opened the scoring with a power-play goal with four seconds remaining in the first period off some nice passes from Hannah Bilkar and Carpenter.

The visitors outshot the Torrent, 15-6 in the first period, but Carpenter scored two big insurance goals in the second. The first was on the power play as Carpenter fired home. The second came on a tip-in of Megan Carter’s shot at 11:22 of the second. Bilka, the game’s number-three star added an empty netter in the game

Meanwhile, Murphy stopped everything at the other end as the crowd of 9,389, chanted `Murphy, Murphy’ every time she came up with a big save. Murphy also debuted a new mask, featuring Seattle landmarks such as Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, Mt. Rainier and a sasquatch.

Murphy lost her shutout with 38.1 seconds when Rebecca Leslie lit the lamp on a scramble in front, but that just afforded fans the opportunity for another `Murphy, Murphy’ chant.

``It’s awesome,’’ said Murphy of the fan response. ``I continue to be amazed every game by the fan support and that was a great example of the fans having my back and the team’s back.’’

“It’s definitely challenging,’’ said Carpenter, of the team’s two-week layoff. ``Luckily, I got to play, and there’s a few of us that got to play in the Rivalry Series, but props to the girls back in Seattle who were working really hard (in practice).’’

Gosling scored a goal for Canada in the series, while Knight, Carpenter, Bilka and Cayla Barnes competed for the American squad.

The Torrent host the Boston Fleet on Sunday afternoon. The Fleet are undefeated (5-0) and have outscored their opponents, 13-2.

Scoring Summary

First Period

S- Julia Gosling 3 (Hannah Bilka 3, Alex Carpenter 2) PPG 19:57.

Second Period

S- Carpenter 2 (Hilary Knight 3, Bilka 4) PPG 6:25.

S- Carpenter 3 (Megan Carter 1, Gosling 2) 11:22.

Third Period

S- Bilka 2 (Knight 4) EN, 18:30.

O- Rebecca Leslie (Rory Guilday) 19:21

Three Stars- 1. Alex Carpenter 2. Hannah Murphy 3. Hannah Bilka. 

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