The Walter Cup will not be coming to Toronto.
Taylor Heise, the first overall pick of the first PWHL draft, scored a power-play goal in the third period to break a tie and she and Sophia Kunin each scored into an empty net to lead Minnesota to a 4-1 victory over 海角社区官网in Game 5 of the winner-take-all semifinal.
海角社区官网won the first two games of the best-of-five seeries, but Minnesota rallied to win the final three.
The 8,501 towel-waving fans chanting “Let’s Go T.O.” at Coca-Cola Colisuem weren’t enough to propel 海角社区官网to victory. 海角社区官网was without Natalie Spooner, who led the league with 20 goals and 27 points in the regular season聽 but was injured in the third game of the series.
Instead, Toronto’s professional women’s team suffered the same fate as their male counterparts. Both the NHL Maple Leafs and AHL Marlies lost their first-round series.
After a 47-point season (in 24 games), 海角社区官网was the top seed and chose Minnesota (35 points) as its first-round opponent, a quirk in the PWHL rules. Minnesota had lost its final five games in the regular season.
The towel-waving fans kept it up, thanking their team even as the game ended on the two empty-netters and the two teams shook hands.
Minnesota will play Boston in the final for the Walter Cup. The trophy is named after the Walter family (Mark, Kimbra and daughter Samantha) who provided the foundational support that launched the PWHL.聽
Boston swept Montreal, winning three overtime games.
It’s not only the NHL playoffs in which scoring is hard to come by. It’s happening in the PWHL, too, with each goalie in the Toronto-Minnesota series posting two shutouts each in the first four games of the series. Coming into Game 5, just nine goals were scored, six by Toronto.
鈥淵ou can see it at any league at this level, when it comes to playoffs, things just get tighter,鈥 海角社区官网coach Troy Ryan said.
鈥淭eams are prepared to do more than they maybe were willing to do. In the playoffs, everybody has more of a commitment to defence. And you got to do some things that may be a little bit more difficult to accomplish. Offence dries up a lot in the playoffs.
鈥淵ou just have to be willing to do some things that are difficult. You’ve got to go to the blue paint. You got to score some crazy goals.鈥
The first period played out as a might have been predicted: It was scoreless. 海角社区官网came out hard, pumped up by video appearance from Spooner, and led in shots 13-7 after the first period but neither goalie budged.
There was finally some offence in the second period, two goals in a 38-second span.
Minnesota struck first on a power play. Kelly Pannek beat Kristen Campbell through the five-hole but hit the post. The rebound, though, went straight to Denisa K艡铆啪ov谩 to open the scoring at 7:29 of the second.
海角社区官网got it right back. Brittany Howard’s lead pass sent Victoria Bach on the rush and her cross-crease pass found Rebecca Leslie at 8:07 to tie the game. It was Leslie’s first goal of the playoffs.
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