Minnesota Frost repeat as Walter Cup champions with OT win vs. Ottawa Charge: ‘Really incredible'
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Taylor Heise didn't want to jinx anything.
But speaking to media on Sunday after the Minnesota Frost's triple-overtime victory in Game 3 of the PWHL Finals, she reflected, just for a moment, on what it might feel like to win the Walter Cup on home ice.
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'Doing this at home would be life-altering,' said Heise, who grew up in Lake City, Minn. 'Even those not from Minnesota would know how important that would be. So I think anyone and everyone is going to come out tomorrow — including Ottawa, doing everything they can — and we're going to try to match that and be better.'
Minnesota became the first team to hoist the Walter Cup last season, but the win came on the road at the Tsongas Center, home of the Boston Fleet, after the Frost thought they'd won it on home ice in Game 4 before Sophie Jaques' double-overtime goal was called back due to goaltender interference.
On Monday night, there was no double-overtime – just one extra frame this time – and there was no goal overturned as the Frost beat the Ottawa Charge 2-1 to repeat as Walter Cup Champions, this time in front of 11,024 fans at the Xcel Energy Center.
'Just a little better,' Kelly Pannek said after the game with her goggles, prosecco and beer in tow.
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Game 4 of the PWHL Finals was yet another high-stakes goalie battle between Minnesota's Maddie Rooney and Ottawa rookie Gwyneth Philips, who combined for 64 saves heading into the final frame.
In the end, it was Rooney who won that battle — though Philips took home playoff MVP — making 33 stops for her fifth straight win of the postseason. A Duluth, Minn., native, Rooney confirmed that winning the Walter Cup in 'the State of Hockey' was indeed life-altering.
'This is definitely going to be one of my favorite moments in my hockey career,' said the 2018 Olympic gold medalist.
Despite entering Monday night's game with a 2-1 edge in the series, the Frost had never held a lead in the run of play, with both of the team's victories — in Games 2 and 3 — coming in overtime.
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That is, until Pannek opened the scoring midway through the second period for Minnesota's first advantage of the Finals.
The goal, Pannek's second of the postseason, was set up by a nice cutback by defender Claire Thompson, who activated into the zone and found Pannek right on the doorstep. With Philips dropping down, Pannek perfectly placed the puck in the pocket above Philips' right shoulder.
'I saw Kelly on the back door, and I just tried to put it in her wheelhouse,' Thompson said of the play. 'She's automatic on those.'
Pannek has long been a reliable 200-foot player with the ability to chip in on offense and she has shown that throughout the Finals. In Game 3, she played 35 minutes over six periods of hockey and took 45 faceoffs, winning 75 percent of them. The details of Pannek's game, including her prowess in the dots, often go unnoticed. But with a massive goal in a deciding game, she was hard to miss.
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'She is an incredible player and definitely someone who does not get the recognition I think she deserves,' Lee Stecklein told . 'She's just in the right spot at every moment. And (I'm) happy to see her get that goal and hopefully some of the attention she definitely deserves.'
Ottawa forward Tereza Vanišová tied the game in the third period to ultimately force overtime for a fourth consecutive game – and 2-1 final score – of the series.
The goal snapped a lengthy cold streak for one of the top goal scorers in the regular season — only Hilary Knight and Marie-Philip Poulin had more goals than Vanišová — at a massive moment in the game, with just 10 minutes left in regulation.
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Vanišová had been all around the play leading up to that goal, to the point where it felt like it was only a matter of time for her to find the back of the net.
From there, Rooney and Philips traded big save after big save. Grace Zumwinkle and Kendall Coyne Schofield combined for 16 shots on goal in the game and came close to sealing the win in regulation, had it not been for Philips between the pipes.
Ultimately it was Liz Schepers who scored the game-winning goal 12 minutes into overtime for her second straight championship-clinching goal.
'That's a gamer right there, if you ask me,' said Coyne Schofield.
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From the outside, or based on the line chart, the Schepers' line might look like Minnesota's fourth. Inside the Minnesota locker room and on the bench they're called the 'blue line,' as head coach Ken Klee opts to color rather than number his lines.
In the Finals, Schepers, Katy Knoll and Klára Hymlárová were, according to their captain, 'the best line in the series by far,' with game-winning goals in Game 3 (Knoll) and Game 4.
'They're dogs,' said Thompson. 'They work so hard and they came up huge in the playoffs.'
Minnesota entered the playoffs as the fourth and lowest seed. The team was on the brink of elimination in its final three regular-season games, but won back-to-back must-win games to finish the year and clinch the final spot in the PWHL playoffs. The Frost beat Toronto in a high-scoring semifinals and managed to flip a switch to win a low-scoring, hard-fought Finals against Ottawa.
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'I keep saying I'm shocked, but I'm also not because I do think we just had an awesome team,' said Stecklein. 'But you can have an awesome team and not win at all. So to be able to do that again is really incredible. It's a hard road, so to be able to do it twice is really special.'
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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