PWHL

State of the Fleet: Volume One

Four games in, what's been smooth sailing and what's been rocky seas for the Boston Fleet?

The Fleet celebrate their win over the Frost. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.

Through four games, the Boston Fleet might be the most surprising team in the PWHL. Many, including yours truly, predicted this team to at least start slow, but instead, they're off to a perfect 4-0-0-0 record. However, that doesn’t mean everything’s been smooth sailing. Here’s one highlight and one low light from each position.

Support TIG With A Paid Subscription

Offense

Newhook raises her arms in celebrations as her teammates come in for a group hug. They are wearing green home uniforms, while the Vancouver players scattered around the background are in cream away uniforms. — Abby Newhook celebrates her goal against Vancouver. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.

The Fleet were expected to struggle offensively this season. However, they're off to a solid start, leading the league with 11 goals scored, while sitting second overall on the power play (23.1%). However, they might be due for some regression in this area if they don't find a way to keep up quality offensive pressure for more than a period at a time.

Highlight: The Fleet have one of the more balanced offenses so far.

Boston is tied for third in the league with Vancouver for players with points (12), and they lead the league for players with multiple points (9). They're also part of a four-way tie for first for players with goals (7), and tied for first with Minnesota for players with multiple goals (3). Just four of their forwards who have appeared in more than one game have yet to find the scoresheet. That’s not a bad start, particularly considering nine of their players have multiple points.

Low Light: They're not causing consistent chaos in front of the crease.

Outside of the last game against Minnesota, the Fleet haven’t done a great job of consistently causing chaos in front of goaltenders. They did an ok job of wreaking havoc in the first periods against Montréal and Vancouver, but outside of that, it’s been a lot of one-and-done opportunities. The pucks are going in enough at the moment, but the goaltending across the PWHL is too good to count on winning most games that way. The Fleet have plenty of hard-nosed players, so theoretically, this is a fixable problem with some practice and perhaps a system tweak or two. However, they're about to spend their next four games on the road, so they'll have to figure out how to implement it in games where they can't easily control matchups, which is not ideal.

Defense

Winn leans forward, holding her stick in her hands as she hunts down the puck, which is out of frame in the corner. She is wearing a green home uniform. — Haley Winn hunts the puck during a game against the Frost. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.

On the surface, the Fleet's defense looks phenomenal, with just two goals against and the league’s only perfect penalty kill. However, Aerin Frankel has a lot to do with those few goals against (more on her later). Still, the Fleet’s defenders have done their part physically to wear down opponents, with a combined 14 blocked shots and 36 hits.

Highlight: Winn is as advertised.

Haley Winn entered her PWHL career with a lot of hype. So far, she’s lived up to that. Her transition into the PWHL has been seamless, and while she only just got on the scoresheet last game, she’s been making a huge two-way impact and leading the Fleet's skaters in ice time. On top of that, her pairing with Megan Keller has simply been sensational. There might be something to be said for spreading the wealth at some point (more on that shortly), but for now, the Fleet seem content to let those two terrorize opponents together.

Low Light: They need more offense from the back end.

Just three of the eight defenders who have played for Boston this season have found the scoresheet. Only Keller has found it in multiple games, and she’s the only one with a goal. For a team that is otherwise doing a decent job of spreading the offensive wealth, that’s a red flag. Granted, many of the Fleet’s defenders are never going to be the type to put up big offensive numbers, but they need some of them to step up at least a little. The best offenses start with good puck movement from the back end, so if the Fleet want sustained success this season, they need to see that more outside of the Keller-Winn pairing. Otherwise, they might have to break them up in hopes of jumpstarting some other players, but that's not something they're going to be eager to do.

Goaltending

On her knees in her crease, Frankel leans forward as she clutches the puck in her glove. She is wearing a white away uniform. — Aerin Frankel makes a save against Toronto. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.

It was no secret heading into this season that goaltending would be crucial to the Fleet’s success. It’s safe to say that’s been the case so far, with Frankel boasting a sparkling 0.50 GAA and 0.980 SV%. However, Abbey Levy has yet to get into a game, and that could prove problematic if it continues much longer.

Highlight: Aerin Frankel is Aerin Frankel.

There isn’t much you can say here other than that through four games, Aerin Frankel has as many shutouts as goals allowed (2). She’s somehow exceeding her extremely lofty expectations, and she’s a big part of why the Fleet are off to a 4-0-0-0 start.

Low Light: They’re overplaying Frankel…again.

On the flip side, Frankel starting all four games is not an ideal workload. It’s hard to take her out of the net as well as she is playing, but she can’t play every game. Three games have been at home, and the schedule hasn’t particularly been condensed, so it’s something they could get away with for now. However, Frankel led the league in games played last year with 23, and she missed two games due to injury or that’d be even higher. She started to show signs of that intense workload at the end of the season. She was often still fine, but she wasn't the consistent game stealer the Fleet needed her. So, if they want to avoid that this season, Boston needs to get Abbey Levy into some games, and soon. There's no reason Frankel should be playing more than three games in a row. Really, a 2:1 split would be ideal if they can swing it, especially on road trips. But at the very least, these four-in-a-row stretches can't keep happening so early in the season.

Overall Vibe

Saulnier skaters toward her teammates with her arms in the air and held wide open for a hug. They are all wearing green home uniforms. — Jill Saulnier celebrates her goal against Vancouver with her teammates. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.

Four games aren't a large sample size, but it looks like this year's Fleet squad is very different than the ones we've seen in years past. New head coach Kris Sparre has them playing a high-speed, in-your-face style that's difficult to play against. It wouldn’t have been much to write home about had they started slow, considering they have a new coach and a ton of new faces, but instead, they’ve gotten off to the best start in PWHL history. That said, this international break is coming at a poor time, given all the momentum they have. However, if they can emerge from it and keep building on this early success, they’ll have a lot of people eating crow come the end of the season.