With two goals including the game winner on Sunday, Natalie Spooner clinched the PWHL's first ... [+]
It took until the final period of the final game of the regular season, but the PWHL’s four playoff teams are now set.
Toronto, Montreal, Boston and Minnesota are in. New York and Ottawa are out.
The PWHL’s first-round best-of-five playoff will kick off on Wednesday, May 8, at 8,000-seat Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto, home of the AHL’s Toronto Marlies. The second series will begin on May 9 at 10,000-seat Place Bell in the Montreal suburb of Laval, where Montreal will host its first-round opponent at the home of the AHL’s Laval Rocket.
Both venues are a step up from the arenas where Toronto and Montreal started their inaugural PWHL seasons, as demand for tickets has been sky-high. Both clubs have already hosted sold-out games in their cities’ NHL arenas, and Montreal now holds the worldwide women’s hockey attendance record of 21,105 following its game against Toronto at the Bell Centre on April 20.
As part of the PWHL’s innovative rules package, first-place Toronto will get to choose its opponent from the two lower-seeded squads. Statistically, there’s almost nothing to choose between Boston and Minnesota. Both sides finished with 35 points off identical records of 8-4-3-9.
Minnesota wrapped up the season with an even goal differential, with 54 goals scored and allowed, while Boston was minus-7 with 50 goals scored and 57 against. But Boston finished strong, making up a five-point deficit in the standings in the last five games of the year after coming back from the international break for the women’s world championship with four wins and one shootout loss.
PWHL Boston captain Hilary Knight. (Photo by Chris Tanouye/Getty Images)
“We’re hungry,” Boston captain Hilary Knight told me just before those final five games. “We understand the Boston climate of sports and the winning culture here, and we want to be a part of that. Obviously, championships take time, but I think there’s so many points in the air right now, we want to get our foot in that door to put ourselves in a playoff position.”
Boston punched its ticket on Saturday. A late goal by veteran defender Kaleigh Fratkin gave the team a 4-3 home win over Montreal and gave Boston the tiebreaker over Ottawa, clinching a playoff berth.
That left Ottawa needing a regulation win on the road against league-leading Toronto on Sunday to knock Minnesota out of the final playoff berth in the last game of the regular season.
Through 4- minutes, Ottawa stayed level, tied 2-2. But on a third-period power play, Toronto forward Natalie Spooner slid a rebound past Ottawa goalie Emerance Maschmeyer for what proved to be the game winner in a 5-2 final.
Spooner also opened the scoring on Sunday. Her 20 goals in 24 games earned her the PWHL’s first-ever goal-scoring crown — and nearly doubled the output of her teammate Sarah Nurse and Grace Zumwinkle of Minnesota, who tied for second with 11 goals each.
Spooner’s 27 points were also tops in the league — four ahead of Nurse, Marie-Philip Poulin of Montreal and Alex Carpenter of New York. At 33, Spooner produced better than a point per game — just 17 months after giving birth to her first child, Rory.
Kristen Campbell finished the season with a record of 16-6-0 for league-leading Toronto. (Photo by ... [+]
The contributions of Spooner and Nurse made Toronto the top-scoring team in the PWHL’s first season, with 69 goals. But the team coached by Canada’s national team bench boss, Troy Ryan, also led the way defensively with just 50 goals allowed. That was thanks, in large part, to a breakout season from netminder Kristen Campbell, who logged a 1.99 goals-against average and .927 save percentage over 22 games played.
According to multiple reports, Toronto is expected to announce its choice of first-round opponent by 7:30 p.m. ET on Monday.
The winners of each semi-final will go on to compete for the Walter Cup in another best-of-five playoff round. At the suggestion of PWHL advisory board member Billie Jean King, the trophy was named after the league’s financial backers to recognize their “historic commitment by Mark and Kimbra Walter to make this dream come true for the PWHL players of today and tomorrow.”
As the first team eliminated from playoff contention, New York secures first pick in the 2024 PWHL draft. The seven-round selection process will be held in Minnesota on a date to be determined in June.
Top prospects available for selection include Canadian collegians Sarah Fillier and Danielle Serdachny, who scored the overtime winner at the 2024 women’s world championship.
