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Minnesota Frost eliminate Toronto Sceptres in Game 4 to advance to PWHL Final

The Minnesota Frost will advance to the PWHL finals after a 4-3 overtime win against the Toronto Sceptres in Game 4 of the semifinals on Wednesday night.

Taylor Heise, last year’s playoff MVP, scored the game-winning goal 16 minutes into overtime, and captain Kendall Coyne Schofield led the way with two goals in regulation.

The Frost entered the playoffs as the No. 4 seed but – as the reigning champions – were still narrowly favored to win the series against the No. 2 Sceptres, according to Dom Luszczyszyn’s model, with a 21 percent chance at winning in four games.

Toronto won the first game of the series on home ice, but Minnesota won three-straight – including a wild 7-5 win in Game 3 on Sunday night – to take the best-of-five series 3-1. It’s the second consecutive year that the Frost have beaten Toronto in the semifinals to advance to the Finals.

Minnesota will await the winner of the Ottawa Charge-Montreal Victoire series, which Ottawa leads 2-1.

In the meantime, here’s some takeaways from Game 4.

Toronto’s goalie change

In her last two games of the series, Sceptres starter Kristen Campbell allowed 12 goals on 49 shots, with a 4.75 goals against average and .813 save percentage through the first round of the playoffs.

So, with their season on the line, head coach Troy Ryan made a big change, starting Carly ‘CJ’ Jackson, who is typically Toronto’s No. 3 goalie. With backup Raygan Kirk on long-term injury reserve and Campbell struggling, Jackson was pushed into a pressure cooker.

In the first period, Toronto did a nice job keeping Minnesota to the perimeter. The Frost only had six shots in the frame and Jackson stopped them all. In the second, Minnesota only managed four shots, but did well to get to the net-front and make Jackson’s job harder despite the lighter workload.

First, Coyne Schofield getting her stick on a ripped shot by Heise only 14 seconds after Toronto made it 2-0. Then Kelly Pannek got in front of Jackson for a tip off a Brooke McQuigge shot. With two goals on four shots, Minnesota had life heading into the third period.

Starting a seldom-used goalie over his starter was a risky move by Ryan. Jackson had only started one game in two years in the PWHL: a 2-1 shootout win versus the New York Sirens on April 29. And while they did well for most of the game, Toronto’s goaltending struggles were put into perspective when, at the other end of the ice, Minnesota coach Ken Klee was able to tap Nicole Hensley after Maddie Rooney’s tough game (five goals on 23 shots) on Sunday.

Hensley, by the way, made 26 saves on 29 shots on Wednesday night, including several big stops late in the game and throughout overtime.

Coyne Schofield delivers

No player was better at five-on-five in the regular season than Coyne Schofield and she put that on display in Game 4, with two even-strength goals at critical points of the night.

Her first goal effectively halted Toronto’s momentum in the second period. Then she buried a rebound to make it 3-3 midway through the third period to ultimately force overtime.

Last season, Coyne Schofield was still making her return to elite hockey after giving birth to her son, Drew, and only scored one goal in 10 games during the postseason – an empty netter in the final game.

This year, Coyne Schofield was once again one of the very best — and most productive – players in the game, finishing fifth in points. Nobody in the league had more even-strength points than her 22.

That, along with the additions to Minnesota’s roster this year, makes the Frost a scary opponent in the finals once again.

Gosling’s rookie impact

It wasn’t a particularly eventful rookie season for Julia Gosling – she scored four goals and 10 points in 30 games, mostly in the second half of the season – but she was a key contributor in the postseason, showing exactly why Toronto drafted her No. 6 at the 2024 draft in June.

On Wednesday night, Gosling opened the scoring with a nice forehand-backhand move to beat Hensley 5:28 into the game. It was her third of the postseason, and maybe more impressively, her second five-on-five goal of the series after only scoring on the power play in the regular season.

It might have taken Gosling some time to find her game as a rookie in the PWHL, but she’s certainly found another level when it matters most. The question remains: will she be on the Sceptres next season, or become a foundational player for one of the league’s newest franchises?

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

NHL, Women's Hockey

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