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Life isn’t quite back to normal for Troy Ryan’s PWHL Toronto squad, but no one is complaining.

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The aura of a gold-medal celebration hangs over the operation even if only Ryan, GM Gina Kingsbury and goalkeeper Kristen Campbell were actually back at practice on Tuesday from the group that was in Utica, N.Y., for the tournament.

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The other contributors to Canada’s gold medal at the IIHF women’s world hockey championship — defenders Renata Fast and Jocelyne Larocque and forwards Sarah Nurse, Blayre Turnbull, Emma Maltais, and Natalie Spooner — were all allowed one full day to recharge before they will rejoin their PHWL teammates for a trip to Boston where the team plays on Thursday.

Examples of the impact the PHWL has had on the women’s game at the international level were littered throughout the tournament, but none was greater than the performance put forth by Fast, the veteran blue-liner and mainstay on the national team.

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Long accepted to be half of the best defensive pairing in the women’s game along with Canadian and Toronto teammate Larocque, Fast and Larocque again assumed that role in the tournament, logging close to just over 23 minutes a game in helping Canada to its 13th world championship gold.

But what pushed Fast over the top in garnering Best Defender at the women’s worlds was the addition of an offensive game Ryan and his PWHL coaching staff have been pushing since the season began.

In addition to the always steady defensive job both she and Larocque produced, helping Canada hold the opposition to just eight goals in seven games, five of those coming in the gold-medal final, Fast and Larocque too, for that matter, were key contributers offensively.

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Larocque’s five points put her in a three-way tie for second in Canadian team scoring with Laura Stacey and Kristin O’Neill while Fast led the team with six points, three goals and three assists.

The two Toronto PWHL defenders also led the team in plus-minus with Larocque a plus-16 for the tournament and Fast a plus-15.

Ryan has been on his defence in Toronto and carried that into his Team Canada duties to jump into the play when there are opportunities to score. He and his coaching staff in Toronto and at the worlds encouraged the defenders to think offensively and built a culture where offensive contributions came from all five skaters on the ice, not just the three forwards.

Fast’s three goals in the tournament are a testament to her growing confidence in her own offensive game. It doesn’t hurt, either, that her ability to get up and down the ice allows her to recover to her defensive position before most opponents can even get the puck into the offensive end.

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“You can see the confidence in her now,” Ryan said. “Scoring goals, the plays she is making at the blue line. She has all those tools so really it’s just the confidence to do it.

“One thing we tracked at the worlds was our shot attempts and we do it here, too, but it’s just getting people comfortable that if you have an attack mentality from the blue line you tend not to have your shots blocked and if they do get blocked, they are getting blocked down in this area and not at the blue line because you have attacked instead of waiting to find the perfect lane. That is one of the things she is doing better than anyone right now.”

And while Fast was scooping up the team and individual hardware at the worlds, another Toronto defender, Kali Flanagan, was back in Toronto with the remainder of the team putting in work to reach that level.

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Flanagan, who has played for the American national team in the past, is an offensively skilled defender like Fast, who is working on the same skills that Fast is now showing off at the world level.

Like Fast, Flanagan has a natural offensive skill set that she has shown in spots this season but is still getting comfortable moving from the old mindset in which she and countless defenders have constantly been told priority one is focusing on preventing goals rather than contributing to them.

Something as simple as aggressively taking those shots from the blue line, even with defending forwards in lanes, is something that takes time to overcome.

“They’ve spent their whole lives being told ‘don’t get those shots blocked’,” Ryan said. “I think you have to flip it a little bit and be OK with getting the shot blocked because if you get an attack mindset, it’s not going to be a good block.”

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Flanagan and her PWHL Toronto defensive partner Allie Munroe were on the ice well after practice feeding each other passes at the blue line and one-timing them into the back of the net.

“I love watching Renata play,” Flanagan said. “She’s obviously an incredible skater so being able to play with her this year and watch her, I’ve learned so much from her. She was absolutely phenomenal at worlds, so I think for me just trying to take that next step offensively … I think I do have a little bit of an offensive flair to my game so just building off that and finding that next level is what I’m trying to do.”

But like Fast, Flanagan says a big reason she’s making strides in her game is the freedom Ryan and his coaching staff give her to play.

“Our staff leaves room to makes mistakes,” Flanagan said. “They hold us to a really high standard but there is that level of pushing past being nervous about making mistakes that allows you to have even greater success and allows you to pull things off that maybe you didn’t think you could.”

It has already paid off for Fast and Larocque. Flanagan looks to be next up.

mganter@postmedia.com

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