WEST ORANGE, N.J. — The New York Sirens have a chance to make quite the statement going into the PWHL Olympic break.
The Sirens (7-0-2-5) sit second overall with 23 points, sandwiched between the Boston Fleet (28 points) and Minnesota Frost (22 points). It’s only appropriate New York faces each of those teams before a Leaguewide pause from Jan. 29 to Feb. 27 for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.
The road swing begins Sunday in Minnesota and concludes Wednesday in Boston — two more tests for a New York squad that has met the mark so far.
The Sirens take a franchise-best seven-game point streak (5-0-2-0) into the weekend, but they’ve yet to best either the Fleet or Frost this season. Fleet goalie Aerin Frankel shut out the Sirens 2-0 on Dec. 17, and the League’s leading scorer Kendall Coyne Schofield helped secure a 3-2 win for the Frost with an overtime goal last Friday.
It’s no stretch of the imagination to consider these measuring-stick games for a Sirens squad that sees itself as a playoff contender. With that in mind, here’s the latest out of New York, or technically New Jersey.
Sirens coach defends struggling power play: ‘We’re getting Grade-A looks’
“If we can finish more, our power play would be awesome,” Sirens coach Greg Fargo said after practice Thursday.
Blunt, but true. Special teams success eludes New York in 2025-26, and that’s none more apparent than on the power play.
The Sirens sport a 10.6 percent success rate on the power play, second-to-last in the PWHL; the Vancouver Goldeneyes trail the pack at 9.1 percent. Outside of a brief two-game stretch in mid-December, when New York scored on three of 10 chances, the results are uninspiring. The Sirens opened the season on an 0-for-17 skid that spanned seven games — nearly a full month. They’ve evaded such lows ever since, but it’s hardly a red-hot unit.
New York got a season-high seven opportunities on the power play in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Ottawa Charge on Tuesday. The Sirens squandered all but one, even coming up empty-handed on a full two minutes at 5-on-3. In fairness, Charge goalie Gwyneth Philips made some ridiculously acrobatic saves, but that’s little consolation in a one-goal loss.
“As well as Phillips or any other goalie plays against you, you don’t blame the lack of finishing on good goaltending,” Fargo asserted. “I think for us, there’s times where we’re just not ready to shoot. We’re surprised by a pass, and something goes wide, or a puck rolls off your stick. A rebound that is a second late from going in the net at the end of the game — they’re minor things. But with a young group, allowing some time for it to mature is also something we’re trying to do.”
The Sirens certainly sustained pressure on the power play Tuesday. And to be fair, their ineffectiveness this season isn’t for lack of trying. New York leads the PWHL with 10.14 expected goals for on the power play, per PWHL Analytics.
A League-leading 47 power-play opportunities no doubt helps that metric. The Sirens rank fifth with 1.6 shots per power play, just outside the top half of the League. Nonetheless, it’s a unit that’s looked dangerous more often than not, but hasn’t delivered the results to back it up.
“I think we’ve got players in good spots. If you look at our expected goals on the power play, they’re amongst the tops in the League. At some point, we’re going to regress to the mean,” Fargo insisted Thursday. “Are there some things that you can continue to tweak? Absolutely, and we’ll, we’ll keep doing that. But for the most part, we’re getting some Grade-A looks.”
That’s familiar rhetoric for Fargo, who’s praised his team’s process despite season-long power-play struggles.
“It feels like were dangerous,” Fargo said following Tuesday’s loss to Ottawa. “So we’ve just got to keep chipping away at it.”
The Sirens scored power-play goals in back-to-back games, although they’re still just 2-for-21 since Dec. 31.
“You can’t fully base your assessment of a power play [on] whether or not a puck goes in the net,” Fargo stated. “So that’s kind of where we’re at.”
That may be true, but Minnesota and Boston boast the second and third-best units in the League. The Sirens’ success will be hard to sustain if they don’t get more out of their power play.
Inside Callie Shanahan’s PWHL debut
Two months into the 2025-26 season, Sirens fourth-round pick Callie Shanahan (No. 28 overall) finally made her PWHL debut. Shanahan stopped 17 of 21 shots against Ottawa on Tuesday, helping New York earn a point before Sarah Wozniewicz delivered the game-winner for the Charge at 1:29 of overtime.
Fargo dropped the big news on his rookie goaltender ahead of practice Monday, announcing to the team that Shanahan would make her first career start in front of a home crowd at Prudential Center.
“The team surprised me,” Shanahan revealed Thursday. “‘Fargs’ all of a sudden brought us in, and he was like, ‘Well, we got to get Callie ready for a first start.’ And the team all came to me. I legit had tears coming out. I was just totally off guard.”
Shanahan’s inexperience showed early. The 22-year-old allowed two goals on the first six shots she faced, and New York fell behind 3-0 by 6:53 of the second period.
“First period, I’m not gonna lie, I was a little nervous,” Shanahan admitted. “Just being my rookie debut and not playing a game since college, basically, but I feel like I got my feet under myself. I have to give myself a little grace. I’m playing with the best players in the entire world. Sometimes, I had to pinch myself a couple times during the game because it felt like a dream.”
“For Callie to go in the other night, get her first game reps — as I said to her, I thought she played well,” Fargo stated. “She gave us a chance to win the game, but we also know it’s only going to get better from here.”
Shanahan hadn’t faced live competition since Nov. 14 during New York’s two-game preseason. Her most recent full game in net was March 13, when her Boston University Terriers faced Clarkson University in the NCAA Tournament. Yes, that’s 10 months ago.
“Oh, that’s really hard,” said Fargo, a former goalie at Elmira College. “Being a backup goalie at any level is a tough role. You’ve got to find ways to stay sharp, physically and mentally. But there’s also a difference between staying sharp and finding some flow when you’re seeing game reps every day.”
Shanahan dressed for all 14 of New York’s games in 2025-26, but didn’t log a single minute until Tuesday.
“I go into every game, even when I’m backing up, acting like I’m playing. So I’m always ready, even if I get put in the middle of a game,” Shanahan said. “Going into this game, I kind of just had the mentality just to soak it all up and enjoy the moment. You only get to play your rookie debut one time, you know?”
Sirens goalie rotation plans remain unaltered
Shanahan’s debut doesn’t change Fargo’s plans with the Sirens goalie rotation — at least for now.
New York has the youngest goalie room in the League. That’s why 23-year-old starter Kayle Osborne is shouldering the largest workload in the PWHL, allowing rookie backups Shanahan and Kaley Doyle to ease their way in.
“With both of our rookie goalies, we know that they’re not going to see game action every night, or even maybe on a regular scheduled plan,” Fargo revealed Thursday. “If Kayle wasn’t playing as well as she is, that may change our plan.”
The loss to Ottawa concluded a busy stretch of three games in five days for New York. Fargo pivoted away from his No. 1 goalie for the first time this season, but all signs point to Osborne maintaining the lion’s share of the starts during her breakout campaign.
It’s likely for the better. Shanahan was servicable, but the dropoff from Osborne was noticeable. Plus, it’s not as if the second-year goalie showed signs of fatigue; Osborne recorded a 1.94 goals against average (GAA) and .930 save percentage during her PWHL-record streak of 13 consecutive games started.
“We feel really good that we’ve got three strong goalies, but they’re all at different places in their development in this League,” Fargo explained. “You can even look back as recent as last year. We knew Kayle was going to be a great goalie, but you need some time.”
Osborne played 10 games as a rookie backup goalie to Corinne Schroeder in 2024-25, finishing the season with a 2.22 GAA and .916 save percentage. In a 30-game season where one regulation win can swing a playoff berth, Fargo can ill-afford to experiment at length with rookie backups.
“No matter how you slice it, this is a step up from college, from what these goalies have experienced,” he explained. “There’s some adjustments as a goalie that you have to make in order to not just play in this League, but play well in this League.”
For now, those adjustments are better off made behind the scenes.
Casey O’Brien gaining confidence: ‘She hasn’t looked back’
New York owes a great deal of its first-half success to a talented 2025 rookie class. No. 1 overall pick Kristyna Kaltounkova seemingly hit the ground running right from the jump, but don’t overlook No. 3 overall pick Casey O’Brien.
The 24-year-old forward logged a career-high 25:45 TOI on Tuesday, pacing all Sirens skaters. The extra minutes were well deserved. A busy day for O’Brien included a clutch drawn penalty with New York shorthanded, a primary assist on Kristin O’Neill’s power-play goal, and three breakaway opportunities against Philips.
O’Brien was somewhat passive to begin her PWHL career, often over-passing in the offensive zone. But all of that’s gone out the window since she scored her first career goal on Dec. 28 — part of a three-goal effort that led the Sirens to a 4-3 comeback win over the Seattle Torrent in Dallas.
“When players have games like that, you hope it unlocks something. I think we saw that with Casey,” Fargo noted. “There’s always that sense of, ‘how can I keep doing what I’m doing, or be the player that I’ve been?’ I think once you’re able to make some inroads — whether it’s scoring your first goal or three goals, in Casey’s point — I think it just gives you a sense of confidence that you can continue to be the same player that you’ve always been. And that’s what I’m seeing with Casey.”
Since Dec. 28, O’Brien has seven points (four goals, three assists) in seven games. She’s recorded a point in four of her past five.
“She’s been able to unlock that, and she hasn’t looked back ever since,” continued Fargo. “She just continues to add to her game. And I think her play has continuously gotten better over the course of the year.”
O’Brien’s nine points in 2025-26 are tied with Kaltounkova for the League lead among rookies. Her four goals rank third on the team, trailing only Kaltounkova (eight) and Taylor Girard (five).
Evidently, a confident O’Brien is a dangerous player. Add it to the growing list of weapons the Sirens have up their sleeve this season.
