Hughes nets winner as PWHL Ottawa beats New York

OTTAWA — Gabbie Hughes’ game winning goal Wednesday night in a 4-2 victory over New York in Professional Women’s Hockey League action gave coach Carla MacLeod plenty to boast about.

Getting the win was all the more special for Ottawa’s head coach with her parents, Gary and Edna, here visiting from Calgary, Alta., as well as her former coach Wally Kozak, who’s also been a mentor of late.

Ottawa (4-0-4-5) has struggled of late having lost seven of its last eight and to finally get back in the win column was rewarding, said MacLeod.

“Oh, we needed it,” said MacLeod. “You know we needed that not only for us, but, of course, our fans and everyone here. Nothing’s ever easy and that’s OK in this world. Like, it doesn’t have to be easy and it was certainly well earned tonight.”

Savannah Harmon, Fanni Garat-Gasparics and Lexie Adzija also scored for Ottawa (3-0-4-5). Emerance Maschmeyer stopped 24 shots.

Chloe Aurard and Jaime Bourbonnais scored for New York (2-4-2-5), while Abigail Levy made 26 saves.

With the win, Ottawa moved into fifth place in the standings and are just two points back of Boston for the fourth and final playoff spot.

“I think the whole group is just feeling ecstatic right now,” admitted Hughes. “I think we deserved that win. We deserve a couple other ones that didn’t go our way and we put this one away today, so it feels really good.”

Ottawa opened the scoring 2:30 into the first period, but it took a moment for the team to realize Harmon had scored. It initially looked like Levy had made the save and the play was stopped, but then Ottawa began to celebrate and upon review it was deemed the puck had crossed the goal line.

New York was outshot 10-5 in the opening period and coach Howie Draper admitted the