Clearly learning from its mistakes, and maybe a little but haunted by the “you picked us” chants from the Ottawa Charge fanbase last season, the Montreal Victoire opted to steer clear of the Charge in the semifinals of this year’s PWHL playoffs.
After finding itself with the power to select its postseason opponent for the second season in a row, the Victoire is instead opting to face back-to-back Walter Cup champion Minnesota Frost in the semifinals.
This leaves the Ottawa Charge to play the No. 2 seed Boston Fleet in a semifinal best-of-five series that begins Thursday night at 7 p.m. in Lowell, Mass. Game 2 will take place on May 2 at 7 p.m. before the series moves to Ottawa for Games 3 and 4.
This could shape up to be a good matchup for the Charge, which has had the Fleet’s number all season. Every matchup between these two teams has been decided in extra time this season, with Ottawa winning three of the four games.
For fans of impressive goaltending, this series will undoubtedly be a good one to watch as Ottawa’s Gwyneth Philips and Boston’s Aerin Frankel, who were goalie partners on the U.S. Olympic team and in college at Northeastern University, will face off against each other.
So far, the two netminders have kept the regular-season series as a low-scoring affair, as Ottawa outscored Boston 9-7 across four games.
Three of those games went to a shootout, with Ottawa earning two of those wins after managing to solve Frankel one-on-one.
While this is the first time in league history that these two teams have faced each other in the postseason, Ottawa’s underdog status appears to put the team on the right side of history. The higher-seeded team has yet to win a semifinal series in PWHL history.
The Fleet finished the regular season with 62 points, the same as No. 1 seed Montreal, though the Victoire narrowly held the tiebreaker with more total wins.
Boston scored 74 goals in 30 regular-season games, only three more than Ottawa’s 71. However, the Fleet only allowed 45 goals, while Ottawa allowed 73.
This series will also offer a change of scenery for Charge fans. Charge home playoff games will be hosted at the Canadian Tire Centre, also home to the recently eliminated Ottawa Senators in the NHL.
On the other side of the bracket, the Victoire will surely be in tough against the Frost, who know how to rise to the playoff occasion and scored a dangerous 91 goals in the regular season.
But the Victoire also had the Frost’s number all season, with Montreal winning all four meetings against Minnesota — two in regulation and two in overtime. The Victoire also held the high-scoring Frost to just three goals across four games.
The Montreal-Minnesota series will kick off on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Laval.
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