Behind The Glass: Packer and Accursi trade unforgettable games

Taylor Accursi takes over the NWHL’s goal-scoring lead

After a brief Holiday hiatus, Behind the Glass is back! Behind the Glass is our weekly column collecting stories, stats, trends, and thoughts from the world of professional women’s hockey.


NWHL

  • Taylor Accursi absolutely went off last weekend. She scored five goals and picked up an assist against the Riveters, including a four-goal third period in the Labatt Blue NWHL Buffalo Believes Classic in which she undoubtedly set a record for the fastest four goals by a skater in league history. Accursi now leads the league in goals with 15 in 14 games./
  • Kate Leary, the NWHL’s Player of the Month in December, extended her scoring streak to 12 games over the weekend. Leary is one of six players in the NWHL with at least 20 points on the season and has played the fewest games of that elite group of scorers. Leary also leads the league with 12 penalties drawn.
  • Buffalo Beauts rookie forward Brooke Stacey snapped her goal-scoring drought on Sunday, Dec. 29 by scoring two goals in Buffalo’s 6-3 loss against the Riveters. Stacey has 15 points — eight of which are goals — in 12 GP this season for Buffalo. She has appeared in only two games this season without registering a point.
  • Veteran Whale skater Hanna Beattie had goals in back-to-back games over the weekend. Prior to her goal on Saturday against the Pride, Beattie had played in 40 NWHL regular season games without scoring a goal. Her versatility to play both as a forward and defender has been a boon to the Whale’s injury-stricken blue line./
  • Metropolitan Riveters newcomer Cailey Hutchison also scored goals in back-to-back games over the weekend. She scored an empty net goal on Saturday to seal the Riveters’ victory in the Labatt Blue NWHL Buffalo Believes Classic and less than 24 hours later she buried her first power play goal of the season with a deflection.
  • 2020 NWHL All-Star captain Madison Packer lit the Beauts up with a two-goal, three-assist performance on Sunday, Dec. 29. Thanks to her monster game on Sunday, Packer now has points in 13-consecutive games and has multi-point performances in three of her last five games. She leads the Riveters with 21 points (10 goals, 11 assists) this season./

SDHL

  • Finnish forward Michelle Karvinen scored a goal and earned four assists for Luleå/MSSK in their 7-1 win over MODO on Dec. 28. Karvinen now has 12 points in 12 games. She missed 11 of her team’s 23 games thus far this season.
  • Lara Stalder scored her 32nd goal of the 2019-20 SDHL season on Sunday against Göteborg. Stalder’s 32 goals leads the SDHL. In 2017-18, she scored 39 goals in 36 games with Linköping HC.
  • Czech forward Laura Lerchová scored her first goal of the season against Luleå/MSSK on Dec. 28 in MODO’s 7-1 defeat. Last season, Lerchová scored four goals in 32 games for MODO. The goal she scored against Luleå was also her first point of the 2019-20 season.
  • Finnish defender Jenni Hiirikoski now has seven goals in the 2019-20 season. She is third in the league in goals among defenders. Hiirikoski had 19 goals in 34 games last season.
  • Emma Woods had a goal and three primary assists in Leksands’ 5-0 rout over Göteborg on Dec. 28. Woods now has 21 points in 24 games in her first season of SDHL hockey. Last season, Woods played in the CWHL with the KRS Shenzhen Vanke Rays./

All data courtesy of NWHL.zone, sdhl.se, or the author’s own tracking.

Disclosure: the author of this piece is currently employed by the NWHL.


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