The season ends tonight. Either in unimaginable glory, or the cruelest of agonies.
Just the facts
When: Today, 7:00 PM
Where: Tsongas Center, Lowell, MA
How to follow: NESN, NESN 360, PWHL YouTube (Out of Market)
Game notes
- The season was over in 2OT, with a sucker punch goal from their former second round pick, until it wasn’t. Minnesota had gone into full celebration, tossing all their equipment all over the ice. Hillary Knight talked to the refs and it was put under review, it was eventually overturned.
- For a game that went most of the way through an extra 40 minutes the shots were kept at a reasonable 33 apiece.
- Sunday was a true goalie duel. there was almost 200 combined minutes of shutout play between Hensley and Frankel before each goalie had a puck slip past them, only Hensley’s one counted though.
- Assumptions have to be we will see the same goalies one last time. This will be a great showcase of USA Hockey’s strength in net.
- Each team’s first round picks played a crucial role in the outcome. Heise the 1st overall pick caused the goalie interference and Mueller the 3rd overall scored the winner. Add in Jaques, the 10th overall pick for Boston, scoring the denied role and you can see both teams had the top of the draft picked well.
- The depth of Boston was not used as much in the last game but you would imagine after the extra day off they will roll their top lines as much as needed to matchup against Minnesota, but have the confidence to put those other trios out when needed.
- Hilary Knight, Kaleigh Fratkin, and Gigi Marvin have an opportunity to not only be the first Walter Cup winners but also becoming the first people to win all three of North America’s different professional trophies, the Clarkson Cup from the CWHL, and the Isobel Cup from the NWHL/PHF being the others. Regardless of the outcome the city that wins will have that claim, Toronto being the only other city that can do that in the future.
- This game will be the first sell out game for Boston this season. The resale market has gone insane in addition to the lack of available first run tickets, with some seats marketed up near $4k, the get in price is more expensive then Game 2 of the ECF for the Celtics last week at over $200.