PWHL Ottawa holds off New York to snap 2-game skid, move into 5th place

Gabbie Hughes scored the game winner with 4:04 remaining in the third period Wednesday night to lead Ottawa to a 4-2 win over visiting New York in Professional Women's Hockey League action.

With the win, Ottawa — losers of seven of its last eight coming into the game — moved into fifth place in the standings and are just two points back of Boston for the fourth and final playoff spot.

Savannah Harmon, Fanni Garát-Gasparics and Lexie Adzija, with an empty-net goal, also scored for Ottawa (3-0-4-5). Emerance Maschmeyer stopped 24 shots.

Hughes scored the winner off her backhand from in close sending the 6,889 at TD Place to their feet.

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

Trailing 2-1, Bourbonnais scored the equalizer for New York on the power play at 9:28 of the third. With an assist on the play Alex Carpenter, who leads the league in scoring, extended her point streak (5G, 3A) to six games.

Leading 1-0 to start the second Ottawa had a number of great chances to extend the lead, but Akane Shiga fanned on one chance and Adzija shot wide on another before Garat-Gasparics scored a jailbreak goal at 10:12 picking up her own rebound for her first point of the season.

New York cut the lead back to one after Zoe Boyd's stick broke on a clearing attempt giving Aurard a clear shot.

Ottawa opened the scoring with an unconventional goal. Initially, it looked like the play was being whistled for a stoppage, but upon review Harmon's shot to the short side had slipped behind Levy.

Ottawa hosts Toronto on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET, with live coverage on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.

New York hosts Minnesota on Sunday.

The full schedule of PWHL games airing