PWHL Toronto forward Jesse Compher (18) celebrates her first goal of the playoffs during third period action as PWHL Toronto takes on PWHL Minnesota during the 2024 PWHL playoffs at Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto on May 10, 2024.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Goalie Kristen Campbell has yet to surrender a playoff goal as her Toronto PWHL team earned a dramatic win Friday night to move within one victory of winning it’s first-ever post-season series.
Top-seeded Toronto has a chance to sweep Minnesota on Monday when its first playoff series in the inaugural PWHL post-season swings to Saint Paul.
Jesse Compher tipped in the game winning goal with just over a minute left in the contest as Toronto earned a 2-0 victory, plus a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five semi-final series.
It was the 11th straight home victory for the Toronto club, dating back to Jan. 26, and the fifth shutout of the season for the goalie Campbell, who kicked out 21 saves for her second straight playoff shutout.
For a second time in this series, the teams played before a packed house of 8,581 inside Coca-Cola Coliseum, just the PWHL’s second visit to the venue. This time, the fans waved white playoff towels.
Minnesota changed up some lines, hoping to shake loose something they couldn’t find in the first game, when they lost 4-0 in Toronto on Wednesday. They also swapped their goalie for Game 2, starting Maddie Rooney instead of Nicole Hensley.
The visitors looked feistier to start Game 2, perhaps less travel weary than they had been two days earlier. Per PWHL rules, top-seeded Toronto got to choose its first-round playoff opponent – and picked Minnesota – so the team from the state of hockey was still feeling a little slighted by that.
The two played to a scoreless first period. Toronto had a big chance halfway through the first period, when Sarah Nurse scooped up a turnover and raced in, flanked by Natalie Spooner. But Minnesota blueliner Sophie Jaques interrupted the play by tripping Nurse.
Those two players later collided hard along the wall in the second period, with Nurse curling up uncomfortably on the ice before getting up slowly and coasting gently off the ice, seeming to favour her right lower body. Nurse visited the training on the bench and took a little extra time before her next shift.
If she was ailing when she returned, it didn’t show. She was flying, and had several prime scoring chances.
Asked about the physicality after the game and whether Toronto thrives when the game gets chippy, Nurse said “I don’t think it hurts our game at all. I think the strength of our team is that we can lead in the physicality factor, but if other teams bring it to us, we’re gonna give it right back.”
“I think that we do a lot of dictating out there,” Nurse added. “And testing the officiating a little bit, seeing what is going to be allowed, what we’re gonna get away with.”
It was undoubtedly a more physical game in every way. Spooner, the PWHL’s regular season scoring champion, got loose for one of her speedy signature drives to the net late in the second period, but Minnesota dragged her down. Minnesota committed hard to putting their bodies on the line to block shots, another attempt to slow hot-scoring Toronto.
Campbell and Rooney were making duelling saves at both ends. Fans once again serenaded Toronto’s netminder – the league’s winningest – with chants of “SOUP,” and some held up giant soup can signs.
It remained scoreless after two.
In a frenetic third period full of scoring chances on both sides, Renata fast delivered a shot from the point with 1:25 on the clock, and Compher directed it past Rooney, who had 28 saves in a standout performance.
Toronto’s crowd erupted – a pinch-me moment for the women, who have long worked to have this league and to make a living as hockey players.
“To play in front of a sold-out crowd in these big playoff moments is something that we’ve all dreamed of, since we were little girls,” said Compher. “So to hear the fans go crazy, I mean, it’s just something that we’ve wanted our whole lives.”
The win came on a big day in Toronto, when news broke that the city is expected to land an expansion WNBA franchise.
“Obviously, I have a vested interest in that my cousin [Kia Nurse], she’s done amazing things for Canada basketball, and to have a professional women’s basketball team here in Toronto is going to be incredible for the next generation of basketball players,” said Nurse. “I think this is going to be just groundbreaking and so I’m very excited to have the women of the WNBA join us as professional women’s sports here in Toronto.”
After Minnesota pulled Rooney, Hannah Miller scored an empty-netter as insurance for the Toronto win.
Now the series is off for two days while the teams travel to the U.S.
Minnesota looked forward to going home.
“Even though this was a loss today, I think we looked like a different team,” said Rooney. “This gave us momentum. We can play with these guys. We can beat these guys.”
Boston leads Montreal 1-0 in the other PWHL semi-final series, and their series resumes on Saturday night in Laval, Que.