The Historic Conclusion

There are countless of times in sports where athletes and franchises make history, but it gets harder as time moves on to be the first to do anything simply because a lot of people have walked that path before. There have been champions in organized women's professional hockey before, but the PWHL has been branded as the best-of-the-best league for all women playing the game. They lived up to the billing with their rosters that featured Olympians from a number of countries, and tonight was the moment where the first-ever champion of the PWHL was crowned. Congratulations goes to Minnesota who now own the first-ever Walter Cup celebration after their win against Boston!

It certainly didn't appear that the eventual champions were even close to being a favorite to win the Walter Cup after finishing their season on a five-game losing streak that put them in the precarious position of needing Ottawa to lose for them to make the dance. In a sequence that perhaps the "hockey gods" had a hand in, both Ottawa and Minnesota lost games to New York and Toronto as Ottawa's three-game losing skid to close the season landed them outside the playoff picture. Minnesota had made it, but they seemed ripe for the picking.

That's precisely what Toronto did as the first-overall team in the PWHL had the choice of choosing between Boston and Minnesota as their opponent. It seemed like a fairly obvious choice based on that five-game slide Minnesota was on, but the truth is that both Boston and Minnesota finished with 35 points and identical 8-9-4-3 records. Boston, as the lowest-scoring team in the league, may have been the beter choice for Toronto, but how many times can Toronto hockey fans suffer at the hands of a Boston team?

Maple Leafs jokes aside, Toronto chose Minnesota as their opponent, and things started well for the first-overall team as they defeated Minnesota by a 4-0 score to extend the losing streak to six games for the State of Hockey. Two days later, a 2-0 win by Toronto put them on verge of advancing as they had not only shut down Minnesota's speedy attack, but had denied them everything on the scoreboard. Heading to St. Paul, it seemed only like a matter of time before this series would end as Toronto was firmly in control.

A more consistent defensive effort from the Minnesota squad saw Maddie Rooney pitch a shutout in Game Three as Minnesota found the back of the net in a 2-0 victory. Toronto ran into some serious adversity, though, as leading scorer and potential league MVP Natalie Spooner left the game with the knee injury, but they still held a 2-1 series lead. While they'd need to figure out who could step into Spooner's role, there was hardly any worry with Toronto needing one more win against a team that was 1-7 in their last eight games.

Game Four saw both sides lock down their defensive zones as the game hit overtime tied 0-0. With the back-and-forth affair being grinded out along the boards with rebounds cleared over covered quickly, it felt like we were in for a long night of hockey. After her shutout two days earlier, Maddie Rooney seemed to have kicked her goaltending up to another level as she was absolutely unbeatable again. That goaltending kept Minnesota's chances alive despite Toronto's pressure, and Claire Butorac's double-overtime goal 84:27 after the puck was first dropped was the winner as Minnesota evened the series at 2-2 with their 1-0 double-overtime win!

From a potential sweep to a potential reverse-sweep, Game Five looked like another defensive battle as Toronto and Minnesota battled to a 1-1 score through two periods. Neither side looked like they were interested in having their season end, but a Jocelyne Larocque penalty in the third period allowed Taylor Heise to score a power-play goal, and Minnesota held the 2-1 lead with 11:30 to play. The defensive shell that Minnesota had been using since Game Three combined with Rooney's stellar netminding help Toronto's offence at bay, and a couple of empty-net goals pushed the score to 4-1, pushed Minnesota into the PWHL final, and the seemingly unlikely potential of seeing Minnesota in the final was now a reality!

There likely wasn't a favorite to be picked based on statistics after Boston beat Montreal in three-straight games, but it seemed like Boston might be the favorite after they dismissed the likes of Marie-Philip Poulin, Laura Stacey, Mélodie Daoust, and Ann-Renée Desbiens. Minnesota visited Lowell, Massachusetts for Game One where Boston won the opening game of the final by a 4-3 score on Jess Healey's third-period goal with 2:25 to play just 15 seconds after Taylor Heise had tied the game. Just as they did against Toronto, Minnesota trailed 1-0 in the series after the opening contest.

That defensive lockdown that Toronto ran into in their series returned in Game Two as Minnesota was much better in their own zone whith Maddie Rooney making a number of key stops, and Minnesota picked their spots as Michela Cava and Sophie Jaques, with a pair of goals, paced Minnesota to a 3-0 win. Perhaps the turning point in this game was the jailbreaker goal scored by Cava just five seconds after Natalie Buchbinder was sent to the penalty box as Boston's power-play was negated quickly, but the series was even at 1-1 following the the three-goal win and shutout for Minnesota.

Game Three saw Minnesota at home in the Xcel Energy Center where the jumped out to a lead just 59 seconds into the game off a Taylor Heise goal, and they never looked back. Despite Boston cutting the 2-0 lead in half with two seconds left in the middle frame, Minnesota got another clutch goal from Michela Cava early in the third period, and Grace Zumwinkle buried an empty-netter for the 4-1 win as Minnesota's improved defensive play had them leading a series for the first time at 2-1. Could they hoist the Walter Cup after Game Four?

It appeared that was the case after Taylor Heise drove the net in double-overtime with the score tied 0-0. I wrote about it on Sunday, but her initial drive was stopped only to have Sophie Jaques pot the rebound past Aerin Frankel to set off the celebration. As we know, that celebration would be short-lived after it was determined that Heise had interfered with Frankel, and Alina Müller crushed any hopes of that celebration starting back up when she scored one minute after play resumed. With the series tied 2-2, Minnesota and Boston were headed back to Lowell for Game Five.

The defensive battle that was waged in Game Four carried into Game Five as the opening 20 minutes saw the teams tied at 0-0. Liz Schepers would finally find room past the wall known as Aerin Frankel at 6:24, and everyone inside the Tsongas Center knew that one goal could be enough with how the two teams were playing defensively as the teams hit the second intermission with Minnesota up 1-0.

The seesaw battle would continue, but Michela Cava scored another clutch goal for Minnesota at the 8:48 mark to give them a two-goal cushion, allowing Minnesota to settle into their defensive shell. An empty-netter from Kendall Coyne Schofield, one of the women largely responsible for the PWHL, was the nail in the coffin, as Minnesota captured the first Walter Cup in a story that not even Hollywood could script for these women!

The full postgame ceremony is below, but the Walter Cup will head to the State of Hockey for at least one season! For the record, Taylor Heise was named as the Ilana Kloss Award Playoff MVP as well!
Not for nothing, there seemed like there was a lot of patting one's self on the back done by the PWHL this season which frustrates me because they didn't get to this point without a lot of people sacrificing what they believed in prior to this league being founded. Frankly, listening to Billie Jean King talk about everyone behind the scenes was nice, but I find it hard to watch her talk about being tall while standing on the shoulders of giants. But maybe that's just me.

Forget all the off-ice stuff that happened through the growing pains because the end result and the games on the ice were absolutely phenomenal this season, and that's a huge kudos for the players, coaches, and staffs of each team who competed hard, played well, and made professional women's hockey look better than ever. The belief that this would work never faltered, but seeing how many people came out to support the women and how many people are talking about the league is direct evidence that funding professional women's sports will lead to success.

For the women who participated this season, thank you for your hard work, dedication, and amazing play on the ice! To the coaches and staffs of these teams, excellent job in setting the bar both in level of play and excitement with how these teams played all season long as well. Combined, the efforts of the players, coaches, and staffs of the six teams have shown that there's a successful future for the PWHL, and I would expect expansion announcements to begin sometime next season after watching how good the hockey was this season.

History was made tonight in Lowell, Massachusetts as Minnesota is the very first PWHL champion. No one will be able to erase that, and there are five other teams who want their shots at the defending champions next season. Might we see the first repeat champion? It's hard to say right now, but one thing is certain: the hockey will be incredible to watch again!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!