ELMONT, N.Y. — Canada’s captain clutch is quickly plying her trade in the PWHL — and UBS Arena got to see it all.
PWHL Montreal captain Marie-Philip Poulin recorded a hat trick to lift her side to a 5-2 victory over PWHL New York on Tuesday night in the first-ever professional women’s hockey game played at UBS Arena, home of the NHL’s New York Islanders.
“The support from these individual teams has been amazing,” New York forward Ella Shelton, who scored the team’s second goal of the night, said. “It’s great to be able to come in and use their facilities. It’s been top-notch. It’s the treatment that we’ve been wanting and what we deserve. To play on that ice… it was kind of a dream come true to play on a big NHL rink.”
Poulin, who wears the captain’s “C” for Montreal as well as the Canadian national team, scored her side’s opener in the first period, their fourth — which was the second Montreal goal in a 1:05 span early in the third period to put New York away after Shelton knotted things up at two apiece just 26 seconds into the period — and an empty netter with 1:06 remaining in regulation.
“We wanted to play fast,” Poulin said. “From our defense to the offense. We all know we have a great team that’s fast enough to get behind their D and get a lot of pucks on nets.”
New York (1-2-0-0) took the lead 6:09 into the game when Jessie Eldridge roofed a wrist shot from the right circle over the blocker side of Montreal netminder Elaine Chuli — the first PWHL goal ever scored at UBS Arena and the right-winger’s first goal of the season.
Its opener, which felt like an inevitability given how the hosts dominated the opening minutes of the game, was quickly canceled out just 2:05 later. Poulin, one of the most decorated Canadian hockey players ever with three Olympic gold medals (she scored the game-winner in each of those gold-medal games) and three World Championships, converted a one-timer from in close off…
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