A from-behind picture of Heise lifting her leg and pumping her fists in celebration. She is wearing a purple uniform.
Taylor Heise celebrates one of her goals against Boston. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.

Taylor Heise’s two goals helped power the Minnesota Frost past the Boston Fleet yesterday afternoon, 5-2. The regulation loss ended Boston’s point streak at five games and is their first since December 30 in Montréal.

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Goal Rundown

Knight leads a line of Fleet players as she skated down the fist bump line at the bench. They are all wearing white away uniforms.
Hilary Knight celebrates her goal against Minnesota at the bench. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.

Heise opened the scoring for Minnesota when she sent a laser through a screen and past Emma Söderberg at 11:04.

Just 1:26 later, a juicy rebound went right to Brooke McQuigge, who sent it home to make it 2-0 Frost.

There were no clips of this goal online at the time of writing, but after a flurry of good chances by the Fleet, Hilary Knight ripped a shot from the slot past Nicole Hensley to bring Boston within one at 10:54 of second. Alina Müller picked up the primary assist on the goal to extend her point streak to three games.

The one-goal deficit did not last long. 1:49 later, Heise sent another great shot past Söderberg to make it 3-1 Frost.

In the third, Knight and Hannah Bilka later connected for a nice chance on Hensley, and Susanna Tapani tapped in the rebound to pull the Fleet back within one at 3:36.

The one-goal deficit would only last marginally longer this time. A great keep-in at the blueline led to a monster shift from Sophie Jaques, which ended with Katy Knoll scoring her first PWHL goal just 2:18 after Tapani’s tally.

Finally, Kendall Coyne Schofield capped off the scoring when she flew into the zone and fired one past Söderberg to make it 5-2 Frost at 11:14. The goal was her sixth of the season, which ties her with Toronto’s Hannah Miller for the league lead. She also tallied two assists yesterday, which brought her to 14 points and powered her past New York’s Sarah Fillier for the league lead.

In goal, Söderberg made 22 saves in the loss, while Hensley made 26 for the win.

Takeaways

Digirolamo looks down and ahead of her as carries the puck (which is out of frame). She is wearing a white away uniform, and Minnesota's Britta Curl-Salemme pressures her from the right.
Jessica DiGirolamo carries the puck against Minnesota. Photo courtesy of the PWHL.
  1. It’s tough to win games when you let up goals quickly after you score.

The Fleet pulled within one goal twice yesterday, but both times, the Frost restored their two-goal lead about two minutes later. Quick-answer goals like that are back-breakers for teams trying to come from behind, especially on the road.

“We just beat ourselves,” Knight said postgame. “I think that’s what’s super frustrating. We gain momentum and this league’s so tight… the margin of error is so small. So, when we don’t capitalize and continue that momentum it’s going to be really hard for us to win.”

  1. The Fleet didn’t get enough second and third opportunities. 

A major problem for the Fleet’s offense this season has been their lack of consistently getting to rebounds. Instead, they seem to primarily be hoping to beat goaltenders on the first shot or via a passing play, which is not a reliable strategy in this league. The goaltenders and defenders are too good. They need to get to the dirty areas more often if they want the offense to break through consistently.

  1. The same players continue to produce in these matchups.

In stats that don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things but are cool, five of the six goal scorers yesterday have scored over 50% of their goals against this opponent. For Minnesota, three of Heise’s four have been against Boston, as have two of McQuigge’s three, while Knoll scored her first career goal yesterday. For Boston, both Knight and Tapani have scored three of their five goals this season against Minnesota. This is partly a product of the teams having played each other four times already (which accounts for 33% of the Fleet’s games and 28.6% of the Frost’s), but it’s still interesting to see the same players showing up on the sheet every game.

“I don’t know, I like to think I play well every single game,” Knight said with a smile and laugh postgame regarding what it is about playing the Frost that brings her success. “But it’s fun to get up for the game, especially against your friends – obviously a lot of familiar faces on the other side. But, yeah I love playing in this venue; Xcel’s really special and the fans show up and I think it’s a great place to play.”

  1. In the end, the Frost simply wanted it more.

This was the fourth meeting between these two clubs this season, and the previous three were one-goal games. The Fleet played sloppier hockey in a few of the prior meetings than they did yesterday, but it was clear from the beginning that the Frost were the hungrier team. They came into it having lost three straight and were sick of it. The Fleet were not ready to match that and the Frost made sure to make them pay for each of their lapses. Games like this happen, but the Fleet must bounce back next game and not let this become another losing streak.

The Fleet will be back in action Friday night when they take on the New York Sirens at home. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. ET at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, MA, and you can find the game on NESN, MSG, TSN, the PWHL Youtube Channel, and thepwhl.com.

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