» Healthy Toronto Sceptres are a threat to anyone in the PWHL

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For the first time in 25 games this season, Toronto Sceptres head coach Troy Ryan had his full roster available to him.

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His Sceptres responded with a closer-than-it-sounds 2-1 win over the Montreal Victoire.

Of course, that’s the league-leading Victoire, a team that even two weeks ago was being talked about as uncatchable in the race for first overall.

But now with a three-point regulation win on Sunday on Montreal’s home ice at a sold out Place Bell Arena, the Sceptres find themselves one regulation win back of the Victoire for top spot in the league with each team having five games left to play.

Ryan made it very clear that while the Sceptres are not standings watchers, they still covet and will attempt to wrest first place from the Victoire, which have owned that spot for the majority of the season.

“We don’t talk about (standings) a lot,” Ryan said. “I did mention it to the group – everyone has their own thoughts on it as well. But you owe it to the league itself and just hockey in general to always push for first and find ways to get there if you can.”

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What Ryan is determined to avoid and something he has stressed with his team is that just because a first-place finish a year ago resulted in disappointment, they should not view a push for first as something they want to avoid.

Finishing first a year ago and choosing to face the Minnesota Frost, who would eventually knock Toronto out of contention for the Walter Cup, was a hard pill to swallow for Ryan and all his players, but he still thinks having that choice this year would be better than the alternative.

And then, of course, there’s the added and certainly more valuable bonus of locking in home-ice advantage for the duration of the playoffs with a regular-season title.

Toronto has seven regulation wins, an overtime win and two overtime losses in 13 home games this year. The seven regulation wins at home are tops in the league, though Montreal has earned more points from home matches with the four overtime wins compared to Toronto’s one.

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“I think home-ice advantage in this league would be very, very valuable, so if we strive for that, the worst thing that can happen is we end up second or third,” Ryan said. “We want to keep pushing and pushing right to the end to see where we can end up.”

But regardless of where they finish and maybe more important than where they finish, is how this team is operating heading into the playoffs, which could be as short as six games if they win out.

The return of Sarah Nurse, a key component of Toronto’s attack, from injured reserve on Sunday gave Ryan the depth in each of his first three lines so that he didn’t have to limit his own top line to simply matching the trio centred by Marie Philip-Poulin.

In the past, and really up until the past few times they have played Montreal, the focus was always on getting Blayre Turnbull’s line out every time Poulin was on the ice.

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Turnbull, Hayley Scamurra and Jesse Compher are the perfect blend of speed, grit and size to match up with Poulin, the greatest female hockey player of her generation.

The downside to matching is that it sort of negates the offensive contributions this line is capable of making. Spending all one’s time trying to lock down another trio tends to put that line’s offence on the backburner. As this line has shown though, they can be just as explosive and just as effective on the attack as they are shutting down another line.

Up until the past few games against Montreal, Toronto’s coaching staff were constantly on Poulin alert, trying to get Turnbull and her line out as soon as Captain Clutch’s skates hit the ice.

“The last three games we’ve gotten away from it a little bit,” Ryan said, “just tonight was a little easier. You’re still paying attention and still focused on it, but you are just not as all-in on it.

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“Part of it is experimenting and, as I said to my coaches, even if we lose experimenting, you want to kind of figure out who does best against her so if we are in a playoff situation against them, it’s not Turnbull’s line or nothing against Poulin. But it’s really nice that instead of having just two lines that can do it, we potentially have three.”

Hannah Miller, another responsible forward with a high hockey IQ has taken her share of shifts against Poulin and held her own. Maybe not as many shifts as Turnbull and her line have, but enough to know she can do the job. Nurse’s return gives him a third centre that can take a turn in that regard.

And while Sunday’s win was the last time the Sceptres will see Poulin and the Victoire in the regular season, avoiding them all together in the playoffs doesn’t seem likely.

mganter@postmedia.com

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