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Ask any player or member the PWHL Toronto organization, and to a person, they would tell you that even with a seven-game winning streak there was still another gear to reach.

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Wednesday night, with a hungry, some might say desperate Boston team in town, Toronto may have reached that level.

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Certainly not everyone agreed, but if they didn’t reach that goal of a 60-minute performance, they came awfully close in a 3-1 win over the visitors from Beantown, who sit in the fourth and final playoff spot with Ottawa and New York both right on their heels.

It was Toronto’s eighth consecutive win in the PWHL season.

After the game, Boston head coach Courtney Kessel commended her team for a gritty third period in which they climbed back into the game, but lamented the hole her group continually digs for themselves before they respond.

“I think we are seeing the same thing over and over again,” Kessel said. “We are waiting until we are down until we want to play with urgency, and that’s just not going to work in this league. I mean, yeah, we fought hard in the third but it’s not enough.”

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Kessel said it’s to the point now where it’s up to the players to change the approach.

“You can only talk for so long,” Kessel said. “It’s their job. I can’t get on the ice and do it for them so they have to show up.”

Toronto netminder Kristen Campbell had her second shutout of the season in her sights until late in the game. With just over five minutes remaining, a Jess Healey shot from the top of the circle eluded Campbell’s glove for the momentary shift in momentum.

Other than that, though, Toronto owned the evening.

Allie Munroe opened the scoring just over three minutes into the game, following up a Sarah Nurse chance and banging in the rebound. It was Munroe’s first goal of the season.

Natalie Spooner gave Toronto a 2-0 lead before the end of the period, stripping a Boston defender of the puck at the Boston blue line and then using her speed to beat two others to the net, where she deked Aerin Frankel for her league-leading 12^th goal of the season.

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Maggie Connors capped off the Toronto scoring in the second period with her second goal in as many games and third of the season on a wrist shot from the top of the circle that beat Frankel.

Frankel was replaced by Emma Soderberg in the third period, as Kessel looked to find a way to spark her team, but Toronto wasn’t letting this one get away.

Things got a little chippy late in the game, including a Megan Keller takedown of Sarah Nurse behind the Boston net that earned her a minor penalty.

Keller gave Nurse another shot at the whistle, which the Toronto forward did not appreciate and said so. Keller gave it back to her on the way to the penalty box. Nurse had the last word, however, waving bye-bye to the Boston defender as she finished her trip to the box.

mganter@postmedia.com

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