The Frost Must Clean Up Things In the Defensive Zone To Beat the Charge

Golf season for the Minnesota Frost will have to wait a little longer. After an exciting overtime win, the Frost will move on to the final round of playoffs to battle the Ottawa Charge for the Walter Cup. 

Minnesota went into last Wednesday’s game up 2-1 in the series against the Toronto Sceptres. The Frost were down 2 goals by 10:33 into the second period, but Kendall Coyne Schofield answered with a goal 14 seconds later. 2 Minnesota goals and another from the Sceptres put the game into overtime. 

With 4 minutes left in the first OT, Sophie Jaques sent the puck low to Grace Zumwinkle. Zumwinkle took a look and sent the puck to Taylor Heise, who was cutting across the blue line. Heise sniped the top shelf from the top of the circle to win the series against Toronto. 

Frost’s early win allowed them to get a week of rest before the next series. They can go in confidently, knowing they beat Toronto handily. 

Going into the Toronto Series, FanDuel listed the odds as Frost -142, Toronto +116. The Sceptres won 3-2 to open the series, but Minnesota answered, winning 5-3, 7-5, and 4-3 to advance. 

As exciting as high-scoring games are, letting in 5 goals in one game highlights Minnesota’s defensive weakness. They managed to make up for it with offensive firepower, but they may need to strategize to win another series.

Last Wednesday, the Sceptre’s first goal in Game 4 exploited Minnesota’s defensive mistakes. Toronto’s Emma Woods received a pass and skated the puck towards Minnesota’s net. 

Katy Knoll and Maggie Flaherty were on her, but they could not stop her pass to Sceptres forward Julia Gosling. Klára Hymlárová was the third player on Woods instead of trying to cover Gosling. Minnesota defender Dominique Petrie tried to backcheck and stop Gosling. However, she stopped moving her feet, allowing Gosling to slide the puck past Nicole Hensley. 

This goal was disappointing to watch because it took a mistake or apparent lack of effort from nearly every player on the ice for it to happen. Minnesota made an impressive effort to dig in and make up for it, but they wouldn’t have had to press to score if they had made an extra effort on defense.

All the PWHL teams have similar talent levels, but Ottawa and Minnesota are evenly matched. The Charge met the Frost 6 times this season, and both teams have 3 wins. Ottawa and the Frost ended the season with 44 points, but the Charge had more regulation wins, and Minnesota had more OT wins. 

The Charge has had one significant roster change since the regular season. Ottawa placed top defenseman Jincy Roese on Long-Term Injured Reserve due to an upper-body injury on May 13. Roese was Ottawa’s regular-season defensive point leader with 3 goals and 11 assists. The Charge called up Sam Ibsell from Ottawa’s Reserve Player List on a 10-day contract and has played in 2 games, with 0 points. 

Despite Roese’s injury, Ottawa maintained a strong defense. However, they couldn’t create a comfortable scoring margin against the Montréal Victoire.

Ottawa’s series against the Victoire was the opposite of Minnesota’s. They didn’t score much and won as an underdog. Dom Luszczyszyn’s model predicted that Montréal had a 63% chance of winning the series, and the Victoire were also the regular-season points leader. Instead, the Charge took down Montréal in four low-scoring games. They won each game by one point and never scored more than 3 goals in one game. Ottawa also got a chance to rest before heading into the second series. 

Goaltender Gwyneth Philips played a crucial role in Ottawa’s defensive success in Round 1. The Frost have been able to score up to 4 goals on her before, but she has also shut Minnesota out. 

During the regular season, Philips split time in net with Emerance Maschmeyer. However, the Charge kept her in net for all 4 games against the Victoire, likely because she has the best save percentage for the playoffs at .956%. She also has impressive highlights, including this one of her saving 4 shots in a row from Minnesota earlier this season:

FanDuel lists the Frost at +180 and Charge at +125 for tonight's game. Throughout the regular season, the Frost had 85 goals for and 76 against, while the Charge had 71 for and 80 against. While the odds favor Minnesota, Philips has been a brick wall in the net. Unlike against Toronto, the Frost will need to step up their defense to beat Ottawa.