PWHL Toronto will get to choose their first round opponent in the 2024 PWHL playoffs. Here's a look at how Toronto matches up against each of their potential opponents.
Finishing first in the Professional Women’s Hockey League in its first-ever season is an achievement and a historic success story for PWHL Toronto. It comes with the privilege and dilemma of embracing the PWHL’s intriguing playoff rule: the top team gets to select, from the third- and fourth-place teams, their semi-final opponent.
After defeating PWHL Minnesota on Wednesday and with one game to play, Toronto now has time before the 24-hour window for them to choose who to face in the opening best-of-five series. And it’s not as though they can scout just two teams. With Montreal securing second, PWHL Boston, Minnesota, and Ottawa are still in the running for the last two spots.
By Saturday afternoon, we may know at least one team – Minnesota needs just a single point in their game against New York to qualify. If Boston loses in regulation to Montreal in the second game on Saturday, Ottawa will clinch based on having one more regulation win. If Boston gets any points, however, Ottawa will have to match their total when they play Toronto on Sunday. It all makes for a very intriguing finish.
Who should Toronto choose? Looking back at their season series against potential opponents tells us a little, but it’s been so competitive and there are so many mitigating circumstances that it may just come down to an instinctual choice, weighing a factor like travel, or a difference in special teams or a key player matchup.
After they clinched first place, Natalie Spooner said, “I haven’t even thought about (choosing our opponent). I’m sure we’ll discuss it as a group and figure it out. The nice thing is we’ve gotten to play all the teams down this last stretch.”
When asked about it, Renata Fast glanced at her coach with a laugh and commented, “I think the team will discuss it a little but ultimately (the coaches) will have the final say.”
Coach Troy Ryan said, “We don’t even know who we would get to choose from, so it doesn’t make sense to waste a lot of time right now into diving into it, but I’m actually excited about it, myself. I’m excited to chat with staff, I’m excited to get some thoughts from players. We picked away at it a little bit and we have all the analytics and the data that we need to make the decision, but it’s also some conversation and some preferences as well.?
“(The players) will be part of the conversation. I don’t think it would be very responsible to fully leave it up to the players. I think it’s important to collaborate, so it will be probably more of a collaboration and a joint effort than most people would actually think it is.”
Here’s a snapshot of the three options for PWHL Toronto:
PWHL MINNESOTA
PWHL Toronto has a winning record against Minnesota, with two regulation wins, a shootout win, and a regulation loss (2-1-0-1). Their two regulation wins were both by a score of 4-1. At the Mariucci Center on February 27, a back-and-forth game saw newly traded Minnesota defender Sophie Jaques scoring her first goal and Sarah Nurse answering. Jaques scored her second goal of the game before Nurse got the GWG in overtime.
Minnesota gave the first three starts to goaltender Nicole Hensley who has a .903 save percentage over those games, while Toronto has run with Kristen Campbell for all four. She has a .927 save percentage
Sarah Nurse (3G 2A) and Natalie Spooner (4G 1A) lead Toronto’s season series scorers with five points each while Taylor Heise and Kendall Coyne Schofield (both with 2G 2A) lead Minnesota with four points each.
PWHL OTTAWA
The season series between Toronto and Ottawa is 3-0-0-1 in Ottawa’s favor. However, each game has had a unique scenario that makes it very difficult to discern where the teams stand. Toronto faced Ottawa in their fourth game of the season, when they weren’t playing their best. It was 3-0 after the first period for Ottawa, and Kristen Campbell was pulled. Goalie Erica Howe played the next game for Toronto when they visited Ottawa ten days later, and it was close until an empty-net shorthanded goal for Lexie Adzija to seal a 3-1 victory.
As they moved into the thick of their winning streak in March, PWHL Toronto beat Ottawa 5-2 at TD Place. And at the end of that 11-game win streak (heading into the World Championship break) Toronto lost a 5-3 decision on the strength of a Daryl Watts hat trick. Goaltending could be a decisive factor between these two, with Kristen Campbell only posting a .850 save percentage, while Emerance Maschmeyer has a .911 versus Toronto. The final game on May 5 might have a lot to say about whether Toronto feels they would have the upper hand in this matchup.
PWHL BOSTON
If PWHL Boston can manage to qualify for the playoffs after facing an uphill battle, they might just be a dangerous opponent that Toronto would want to avoid. The season series is 3-0-0-2 for Toronto, but every game has been highly contested. Boston won the first contest in January (just before Toronto started trending upward), and the last one (right after the World Championship break).
Natalie Spooner scored a hat trick at Tsongas Center and leads all scorers in the matchup with 5G 1A, while Hilary Knight has been held pointless. Emma Soderberg has started three of the five games and came in for relief when Aerin Frankel was pulled after two periods in March’s 3-1 loss. Soderberg and Frankel both have has a save percentage just over .900. Kristen Campbell played four of the five games (facing over 100 shots), posting a .911 save percentage.