The league-leading Montreal Victoire got to pick who they’d play in the first round of the playoffs, and rather than selecting the team that squeaked into the fourth and final berth on the last day of the regular season, Montreal chose to go toe-to-toe with the two-time defending champions from Minnesota.
And so, Montreal will open the playoffs against the only franchise to ever hoist the Walter Cup, a Frost roster that includes the league’s top three point-getters, and a team that scored more goals than any other this season.
It’s a real head-scratcher of a decision by the Victoire, isn’t it?
Well, that depends on how you slice it. Head-to-head results this season paint a different picture, and the four-game losing streak Minnesota carries into the post-season looks pretty good compared to the four-game winning streak Ottawa’s enjoying after clinching in their season finale. Add to that the fact that parity in this league is incredible and the understanding that common sense doesn’t prevail in the PWHL playoffs, and the Victoire’s choice looks better and better.
The trend in the league’s short existence is that the lower seed has won every semifinal series. Montreal will be hoping to put an end to that as they try to become the first team to beat Minnesota in the playoffs, win a first-ever playoff series and advance to the Walter Cup for the first time. Meanwhile, the Frost will be looking to achieve sports’ incredibly rare threepeat.
The five-game semifinal opens Saturday at 2 p.m. ET at Place Bell.
Victoire X-Factor: Captain Clutch
After missing 10 games with a lower-body injury, captain Marie-Philip Poulin was activated from the long-term injured reserve list in time for the Victoire’s season finale on April 25 against Seattle, and she tallied an assist and logged just over 17 minutes of ice time.
“Obviously, for me, I did want to put a game under my belt before playoffs,” Poulin explained during a Zoom call in which she used the username “mpp” and sported a ballcap in Victoire colours. “I was happy to get back on that ice. Obviously, not fully satisfied, but it’s part of it. And [I’m] obviously pretty excited to get back at it Saturday.”
Asked if she could put a percentage on how healthy she feels, Poulin laughed. The answer was a hard no, but Poulin did offer this: “The heart, the mind is there. So, I’m going to do anything possible to play my game.”
So, the captain is back. The question is how healthy Poulin feels after sustaining an injury to her right leg, the same one she hurt at the Olympics, where No. 29 missed two games before returning to the ice for Canada, though clearly not at her full strength.
Poulin’s 18 points in 19 games this regular season featured five recorded against the Frost in three games. The aptly named Captain Clutch also scored the game-winning goal in two of those contests.
The author of three Olympic gold medal-winning goals has made a career of being a one-woman X-Factor. The question is whether Poulin is healthy enough to offer her usual one-of-a-kind contribution, as badly as her heart and mind want it to happen.
Frost X-Factor: Spoiler gene
Minnesota finished each of the last two regular seasons in fourth place, the last team to get into the playoffs before going on to win the Walter Cup. A big part of this team’s identity is that they get it done when it matters most.
And you have to think that being selected over Ottawa — a team they scored 20 more goals than this season, while allowing the same number against — adds fuel to their fire. Not that anyone will admit that.
“It doesn’t really matter that much for us,” said Frost head coach Ken Klee. “It’s a tough choice, having the choice to pick. Our league is so close, and there’s so much competitive balance that, you know, I don’t think there’s any right or wrong choice for them. They made their choice, which is fine with us.”
“It’s something that’s completely out of our control,” captain Kendall Coyne Schofield added. “We were just more so looking, ‘Okay, when are we leaving — this day to go to Boston or this day to go to Montreal?’ And when we got the news, we were like, ‘Alright, what’s the schedule?’ And so we start preparing for Montreal, because that’s where we’re going, that’s where we’re told to go, and it’s out of our control. So, I think that’s our mindset, and we just get ready to go to work.”
Alright. But does this Frost team come in feeling good and ready to go, knowing they’ve won the last two Walter Cup titles as underdogs? Coach Klee said he agreed with that statement: “100 per cent.”
Desbiens is tres, tres bien
No goalie in the league had a better GAA than Ann-Renée Desbiens’s sparkling 1.11 during the regular season, or a better save percentage than her .955.
In 25 starts, Desbiens logged seven shutouts (bettered only by Boston’s Aerin Frankel, who had eight). She even recorded an assist.
And Desbiens has been particularly good against Minnesota, which features a roster of goal-scorers. In four starts against the Frost, Desbiens gave up just three goals and registered two shutouts. Her last came in their final regular-season meeting on March 25, when she made 21 saves to pace Montreal to a 3-0 win.
Do-over time, starting at home
Montreal was upset in both previous trips to the playoffs, and last season, no doubt stung most of all since they finished in first place and got bounced by the lower-seeded Charge.
“Those are the moments, that’s what keeps you coming back and want to be a part of that team,” Poulin said. “That’s what keeps you hungry, what keeps you motivated. It’s not always going to be perfect, and obviously coming into the playoffs, we’ve struggled the last two years, but obviously every year it’s a new year, it’s a new team, and we’re truly excited.”
While the playoffs are a different animal, the Victoire’s regular-season record at home (where they’ll open the semis) was an incredible 11-2-1-1, which can’t be ignored. Just two losses in 15 games on home ice, and if that success can carry over to the playoffs, that’s an enormous benefit for the Victoire.
“We play for each other, we want to make a difference, and honestly, we are happy with where we’re at, where we finished the season,” Poulin said. “But we’re not satisfied yet…”
Montreal put together an incredible run after the Olympic break, but the most telling part of their second half was the 10-game stretch without Poulin. During that time, the Victoire went 7-1-1-1.
“I think that allowed our group to kind of raise and collectively continue to push forward,” said head coach Kori Cheverie, whose roster was also without Maureen Murphy for most of that stretch, though the forward is also back. “Regardless of who was in the lineup or out of the lineup, our group just really came together and put forward some really great games down the stretch.”
It’s evidence of the Victoire’s depth. Abby Roque, an off-season acquisition, tied Laura Stacey for the team lead with 22 points on the season, while fellow forward Hayley Scamurra managed a big uptick in her production, from three points last season to 16 during this campaign. Rookie defender Nicole Gosling put up 19 points of her own and emerged as a leader on the blueline.
“She makes people around her better, and she’s been a piece to our puzzle, and she’s gotten a lot of opportunities with our group to play in multiple situations,” Cheverie said of Gosling, adding the defender is “a big reason why our D core has had success, our team has had success.”
No team in the PWHL scored more than the Frost’s 91 goals this regular season, no player scored more than Kelly Pannek’s 16 goals, and no power play was more effective than Minnesota’s, which owned a 23-per cent success rate (and will go up against Montreal’s PWHL-best PK and its 91.8-per cent success rate).
Minnesota forwards Taylor Heise and Grace Zumwinkle cracked the league’s top five in goals with 13 apiece, and Pannek (33), Heise (30) and Britta Curl-Salemme (29) ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in points league-wide.
While they face a formidable foe in Desbiens, no team is better equipped to try to beat the veteran Team Canada netminder.
“It’s no secret that Ann-Renée is an incredible goaltender, and so it’s going to be getting pucks to the net, getting inside the dots, taking her eyes away, and capitalizing on second and third chances that are at the net front,” Coyne Schofield said, while admitting that’s all easier said than done.
“We have a lot of great players in that room and a lot of players who like to score goals,” she added, with a laugh.
Six members of the Frost — Coyne Schofield, Heise, Pannek, Zumwinkle, Curl-Salemme and Lee Stecklein — were on the American team that won Olympic gold, the largest contingent from any one PWHL team at the Winter Games.
To cap off that achievement with a Walter Cup would make for quite a year, indeed.
Pannek, who won Olympic gold in her third appearance at the Games, also won the PWHL’s scoring title for the first time, and she’ll be a frontrunner for league MVP. Add a Walter Cup, and it doesn’t get much better than that as far as seasons go, sports fans.
Winning three straight titles at the highest level in your sport is tough. It has happened just five times in NHL history, with only two of those coming after the league doubled from six to 12 teams, and none since further expansion.
The PWHL had six teams when Minnesota won its first and second titles, and there are now eight as the Frost try to make it three in a row. Like every original franchise in the league, the Frost lost some key players to expansion this past off-season. That’ll happen again this summer since the PWHL is expected to add a minimum of two more teams, and possibly four.
The addition of generational talents in the upcoming draft (headlined by Caroline Harvey) will no doubt shift the league as well, making it harder still to win one Walter Cup, let alone three in a row.