Toronto wins PWHL’s playoff opener
TORONTO — Toronto head coach Troy Ryan felt his team met its own expectations in its biggest game of the season to date.
Blayre Turnbull scored twice to lead Toronto to a 4-0 win over Minnesota in the firstever Professional Women’s Hockey League playoff game on Wednesday. Toronto played in front of 8,473 fans at Coca-Cola Coliseum, the team’s new home for the playoffs after spending the regular season at Mattamy Athletic Centre.
“It’s what I believe I expect and I think what the group expects as well,” Ryan said. “Being everything we thought it would be, I think the atmosphere was incredible. I think our performance was pretty good and I think it’s a great stepping-stone for us to continue to build on for this series and hopefully moving forward. Definitely a good first Game 1.”
The hosts closed the regular season with four straight wins, including a 4-1 victory over Minnesota last Wednesday.
Toronto went 2-1-0-1 against Minnesota in the regular season. Minnesota earned a 3-1 road victory on Jan. 10.
Turnbull said the performance was a result of the team preparing itself for playoff hockey during the regular season.
“The whole season we’ve been building and building, waiting to get into playoffs and trying to fine-tune our game every week and get better so that when the playoffs arrived, we were ready to go,” Turnbull said. “I think there’s still a few areas that we can keep improving on but overall, we’re pretty happy with where we’re at and we know that we can take it to a whole other level.
“We’re excited to get back on the ice for Game 2 but we’re really proud of our execution here in Game 1.”
Game 2 in the best-of-five semifinal is set for Friday in Toronto.
Natalie Spooner, with the opening goal and one assist, and Emma Maltais also scored for top-seeded Toronto.
Kristen Campbell, who led the PWHL with three shutouts in the regular season and was second in goals-against average at 1.99, posted a 26-save shutout.
“I was seeing [pucks] really good out there,” Campbell said. “I thought our team did a great job helping me out when I needed it, blocking shots and clearing pucks. I just play one puck at a time, that’s been my motto this whole season.
“Just taking control of the game when I can and getting us whistles and staying calm back there.”
Nicole Hensley stopped 15 shots for fourth-seeded Minnesota.
“We played a good game,” Minnesota head coach Ken Klee said. “We had a couple mental mistakes, individual mistakes and they capitalized. We look at the game as a whole, we got down and we were chasing and that’s the tough part.”