What a game! I had high hopes for this series in terms of entertainment value, and game one between the Minnesota Frost and the Montréal Victoire did not disappoint.
In front of a raucous Place Bell, the Minnesota Frost took a one-game lead in the best-of-five series with a 5-4 overtime victory.
The Frost offense wakes up against Montreal
Coming into this series, finding ways to generate offense was going to be key for Minnesota. The league’s highest-scoring team in the regular season had only scored three goals in four games against Montréal. On Saturday, the Frost scored more goals (5) than they did in all four regular-season games against the Montréal Victoire combined.
Taylor Heise credited the Frost’s depth when asked by reporters postgame about the offensive success.
“Getting shots on net and just rolling through our lines. Our depth is a very important part of our team, and I think continuing to do that, continuing to have our defense be our best offense. If you can play really good defense, you can play really good offense,” Heise said.
As they have all season, the Frost got offensive contributions up and down their lineup. Katy Knoll opened the scoring for the Frost off a great feed from Klára Hymlárová. Hymlárová picked a good game to have her first multi-point game of the season. She notched her second assist of the game on Sidney Morin’s short-handed goal early in the third period. The goal was Morin’s first as a member of the Frost. Morin’s goal came less than a minute after Laura Stacey scored her second of the night, tying the game at three.
Hymlárová was one of four Frost players to register multiple points on the night. Taylor Heise and Kelly Pannek each had two assists. Heise’s second assist was a beautiful feed to Kendall Coyne Schofield on the power play to give the Frost an early two-goal lead.
Grace Zumwinkle also chipped in a goal and an assist. In the end, six Frost forwards had at least a point.
“We expect everyone to contribute, we expect everyone to be pulling the rope to help the team get wins,” head coach Ken Klee said.
A back-and-forth affair
After a slow start, the Montréal Victoire battled valiantly. Powered by a Laura Stacey hat-trick, Montreal fought back to tie the game three times. Down two after one period, Montreal tied the game in the second, and then again twice in the third.
“I thought our ladies did a great job not panicking,” Klee said. “Obviously, they had the two goals in the third on the power play, and we still didn’t panic and just kept playing hard.”
In the end, it was trade deadline acquisition Jincy Roese that fired a puck through a Kelly Pannek screen that found the back of the net in overtime.
“I was trying to get middle like we talk about, and I saw Laura Stacey, who had a hat-trick, and Abby Roque right there, and I thought this puck needs to get through,” Roese said of her overtime goal. “So [I] tried to create some chaos, and luckily it went in.”
Roese’s overtime winner gives the Minnesota Frost a one-game lead in the best-of-five semi-final. If game one was any indication, the rest of this series is going to be must-see TV. Don’t miss it.
The Frost and Victoire will do battle again in game two on Tuesday, May 5th, at Place Bell.