2015-16 National Women's Team

HOWE EARNS 22-SAVE SHUTOUT, RED BLANKS WHITE AT FALL FESTIVAL

JASON LA ROSE

CALGARY, Alta. – Erica Howe (Orleans, Ont./Brampton, CWHL) was perfect, stopping all 22 shots she faced, leading Red past White 2-0 on Friday night in the first of two intrasquad games at Canada’s National Women’s Team Fall Festival.

Red has opened camp with back-to-back wins, including Thursday’s 4-3 victory over the AMHL’s Calgary Flames.

Jill Saulnier (Halifax, N.S./Calgary, CWHL) and Meghan Agosta (Ruthven, Ont.) had the goals for Red, which won despite being outshot 22-18.

Elaine Chuli (Waterford, Ont./University of Connecticut, HE) and Amanda Leveille (Kingston, Ont./University of Minnesota, WCHA) split the goaltending duties for White, and each allowed one goal; Chuli got the start and turned away eight of nine before Leveille stopped eight of nine in her 30 minutes of work.

Nearing the end of a fast-paced first period that included more than eight minutes without a whistle during one stretch, Red opened the scoring on a lucky bounce; a centering pass from Marie-Philip Poulin (Beauceville, Que./Montreal, CWHL) redirected off the leg of Saulnier and beat Chuli with just 36 seconds left in the opening frame.

Red continued its search for offence in the second, not registering a shot until the 12-minute mark of the period, but Agosta doubled the lead on the power play at 18:17, hammering a shot off the cross-bar and past Leveille.

Howe did the rest, standing tall on White’s lone opportunity with the man advantage early in the third period and making a couple of point-blank stops in the dying minutes to preserve the clean sheet.

The camp teams will once again face AMHL competition on Saturday; White is up first, taking on the Flames (12:30 p.m. MT), before Red meets the SEAC Tigers (3:45 p.m. MT).

Camp finishes with another intrasquad game on Sunday morning (9 a.m. MT).