Karla Stasiak / McGill Tribune

This weekend was a difficult one for the Martlets hockey team, as they faced two top teams in the RSEQ on back-to-back nights, the Montreal Carabins and the Concordia Stingers. Ranked second and third in the RSEQ respectively, both teams were set on breaking McGill’s 10-game winning streak with the hope of shortening the point gap between them and the first-placed Martlets.

Yet neither were successful at stopping the freight train that is Martlets hockey, as McGill netminder Charline Labonté registered her fourth and fifth shutouts in 11 starts and backstopped her team to their eleventh and twelfth consecutive wins.

The first period of Friday’s game against Concordia proved to be fatal for the Stingers, as two of their three minor penalties of the period led to powerplay goals by Katia Clement-Heydra. The Stingers seemed intent on playing a rough, physical game with the hope of intimidating McGill, but their poor discipline ended up stinging them right back. “When the other team wants to get undisciplined, we do our best to move the puck quickly and protect ourselves, and then when they get penalties we want to go on the powerplay and do some damage,” explained Head Coach Peter Smith. “The girls are going to stand up for themselves, but they’re also going to play smart.”

The second period featured five minor penalties, with four going to Concordia, who finished the game with no less than 10 infractions. Once again, McGill made their opponents pay for their indiscipline when another powerplay goal by Ann-Sophie Bettez, who registered four points (1G, 3A) on the night. The third period was simply a formality for the two teams as McGill’s Melodie Daoust scored her fifth goal of the season, driving the final nail into Concordia’s coffin. By the end of the game, the Martlets had gone three for nine on the powerplay thanks to 10 minor penalties assessed to Concordia. Despite the win, the head coach still saw some minor adjustments to be made. “I’m not sure that we quite dictated the tempo that we would have liked to have during that game. They have a tendency to slow us down a little bit. But we still created a lot of scoring chances during that game.”

Saturday’s matchup against Université de Montréal was a slightly more daunting task, as the Carabins are the only team who managed to eke out a stunning 3-2 win on the Martlets on October 29th, ending their 107-game win streak. Though McGill destroyed the team 10-1 in their following meeting, one could still sense that there was frustration on the Martlets bench towards their cross-town rivals.

The first period featured a total of five minor penalties, with three of them going to the Carabins. Proving that success can carry over games, Bettez opened up scoring with a powerplay tally one second before the end of the first. The second period saw McGill put 15 shots on Carabins goalie Rachel Ouellette while only allowing three on Labonté. Melodie Daoust had the lone goal of the period, with the only assist going to Bettez.

The game quickly got out of hand for Montreal in the third period when Daoust scored twice to complete her hat trick and Bettez added another tally to finish the game 5-0. Clement-Heydra had three assists and Labonté made 12 easy saves for the shutout, improving her season to 10-1-0 in the process. “I liked that game, I thought that the tempo of that game was the tempo that we want to play at. I thought that in many ways, that was one of our better games this year,” Smith declared. “Coaches always talk about playing a full 60 minutes and I thought that in that game, we did.” With 24 points on the season, McGill now has a firm grip on first place in the RSEQ with a seven point lead over second-ranked Montreal.