Four Takeaways from The Battle on Bay Street

For the third straight year, the PWHL's Toronto Sceptres came up victorious as they skated off the ice at Scotiabank Arena for The Battle on Bay Street. This year's iteration of the premier event at the NHL arena saw the Sceptres defeat the Vancouver Goldeneyes 2-1 in overtime, thanks to Daryl Watts' winning goal.

Here are five thoughts I took away from Saturday's win, which snapped a four-game losing skid for the Sceptres:

When Raygan Kirk is on, she's on.

Raygan Kirk has now started three of the last four Sceptres games, and while the results haven't always been positive, it's clear that she's more than capable of stepping up and making those big saves when they count. More than once during Saturday's game, Kirk got over to make a clutch save to help keep the game even.

She finished with 23 saves, including 12 in the second period and another seven in the third period.

The win was Kirk's second of the season and first since the season opener. She said postgame that she tried not to focus on that, but that it can be frustrating and she was "really relieved" to get another victory under her belt, particularly as the Sceptres prepare for three straight road games.

Sometimes, you've got to just let the players do their thing.

Entering Saturday's game, the Sceptres' power play was leaving a lot to be desired. Toronto hadn't scored on the advantage in six straight games, going 0-for-8 in that stretch. So what did head coach Troy Ryan do?

He let the players figure it out.

"We're worked with some powerful units," he said. "Originally, we had one unit we loaded up on, then we split it up into two. Tonight, we didn't even tell them what their power play units were going to be until about maybe an hour before the game."

"One unit, we had a general plan for them," Ryan added. "The other unit, we gave them a whiteboard and told them there's a room with four or five chairs in it. Go sort it out. Figure out what breakouts you want to do. Figure out what setup you want to do."

"They had probably a five- or ten-minute meeting and got on the same page," he said. "Although that seems like not coaching, you're actually trying to coach—you're trying to give them some ownership in it. Players are going to do a lot more when they have a little bit of autonomy, a little bit of ownership."

(Blayre Turnbull's power play unit was the one with the whiteboard—and the unit that found a way to score, on a goal by Savannah Harmon.)

Daryl Watts is one of those players who 'just loves to score.'

Toronto native Daryl Watts gave the Sceptres the victory on Saturday with her team-leading sixth goal of the season, but it wasn't a surprise to anyone who's watched her this season.

Ryan described Watts as a 'high-end talent' who 'thinks the game offensively.'

"The thing with Daryl—and a lot of great offensive players think this way—those players just love to score," he said. "Sometimes, it's easy to find the other attributes, like maybe they're not as great defensively as some other players. It's not that they're irresponsible defensively, they're just driven to score goals and to create offense."

"Daryl and I had a really good talk down in Boston," he said. "The conversation was generally around how players like that get frustrated when we're not scoring goals. To me, it was... how you deal with your frustration is going to determine whether we find ways to score goals or no."

"Great player; I think she's learning more about the game, the broader part of the game," he added. "If she continues to learn that side of it and matches it with her elite offensive ability and that passion to score and create offense, I think in time, she'll become a really, really great player."

Even Vancouver head coach Brian Idalski, unprompted, called Watts 'an elite player.'

A win is nice, but the Sceptres know there's more work to be done.

There were certainly aspects of Toronto's game to take positives away from, like outshooting their opponent 20-4 in the opening frame, dominating possession time and putting 44 shots up on Emerance Maschmeyer.

Breaking out of a four-game losing streak is always good, and the Sceptres now sit fifth in the league with 17 points and a 4-1-3-5 record. There's still a lot of hockey left to be played this season, and Toronto will look to build off this win as they continue on. The power play was successful, but how will it look going forward? Can the team as a whole perform in front of Kirk and help her get more well-deserved wins?

They'll get the chance quite quickly, as the team now heads out west for a two-game road trip. The Seattle Torrent await for a game on Tuesday night, before we see a rematch against the Goldeneyes in Vancouver on Thursday. The road trip will undoubtedly provide some team bonding time and time for more conversations like Ryan had with Daryl Watts—time & space to iron out the details and work on the little things.

The Sceptres have three games left before the Olympic break and aren't back on home ice again until March 3. Eight Sceptres players are heading to Milano-Cortina, including six Canadians and two Swedes. In addition, much of Toronto's coaching staff will be there, including Ryan and general manager Gina Kingsbury, goaltending consultant Brad Kirkwood, performance consultant Daniel Tkaczuk and equipment manager Alana Goulden.