Marie-Philip Poulin scored twice, including into an empty net, as the Montreal Canadiennes claimed their fourth Clarkson Cup title with a 3-1 win over the Calgary Inferno on Sunday.
The win exacted some revenge for the Canadiennes after the Inferno earned an 8-3 win in last year’s Clarkson Cup, the Canadian Women’s Hockey League championship.
Last year was Calgary’s first Clarkson Cup appearance.
Katie Clement-Heydra also scored for Montreal and Julie Chu had two assists on Sunday.
The title was the fourth for Montreal in the nine years the Clarkson Cup has been held and the team’s first championship since 2012.
They also won titles in 2009 and 2011, all as the Montreal Stars.
In 2013 and 2015 they were also the Stars and lost the championship both of those years.
Montreal’s CWHL team was renamed the Canadiennes before last season.
The Inferno were the regular-season champions going 20-4-0 and finishing four points up on the Canadiennes in the standings.
The teams split six games during the regular season with one of Calgary’s wins coming in overtime.
Calgary scored a league-best 100 goals during the regular season but couldn’t get one past Charline Labonte on Sunday until Jillian Saulnier broke the shutout bid at 12:57 of the third period.
Labonte finished with 27 saves while Emerance Maschmeyer made 21 in Calgary’s net.
Clement-Heydra opened the scoring with a power-play goal at 12:36 of the first period, and used some good hand-eye co-ordination in the process.
She grabbed a puck out of the air and dropped it to her feet before chipping a backhand over the shoulder of Maschmeyer for
a 1-0 lead.
The Canadiennes maintained their one-goal advantage until 5:24 of the second period when Poulin scored to double the advantage to 2-0 on a shot Maschmeyer would certainly like another chance at.
The Poulin shot from the slot should have been caught by the Inferno netminder, but instead it went off her glove and down between her legs and in.
Calgary hadn’t generated much in the way of opportunities through the first half of the game, but started to pick up their pace in the second half of the second period.
The Inferno didn’t get their first lead in shots on goal until six minutes into the third period.
Labonte wasn’t tested much in the opening in the opening 30 minutes of the game but she did need to be sharp in making a good glove save off Brittany Esposito 12 minutes into the second.
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