SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The game wasn’t even a minute old when Taylor Heise brought 9,054 roaring fans to their feet, then threw both her arms in the air and yelled “Let’s go!”
Heise got her team started, Sydney Brodt potted the winner, and Michela Cava scored in her third straight game of the PWHL final to help pace Minnesota to a 4-1 victory over Boston on Friday in front of a boisterous crowd at the Xcel Energy Center.
It was Cava who provided the dagger early in the third period, toe-dragging her way past a couple opponents before she tucked the backhand in the net to make it 3-1, Minnesota.
“Clearly she put two defenders in a blender on her move,” Heise said of her linemate, who also assisted the opening goal, and is now averaging two points per game in the series.
The State of Hockey is now up 2-1 in the best-of-five PWHL final, and one win away from claiming the Walter Cup as the league’s first-ever champion.
The “MINN-E-SO-TA! (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap)” cheers were going just after puck drop, and then came the thunderous cheering and towel-waving when Heise scored her playoff-leading fifth goal of the post season, 59 seconds into the game.
The Minnesotan jumped on a puck that deflected out to her in the high slot, then fired a rocket of a wrist shot, blocker side, top shelf. Heise, 23, the No. 1 draft pick ahead of this season, was held without a point in the first four games of Minnesota’s opening series against Toronto, but now leads all scorers in the post-season with seven points in her last four.
“I would just say I kind of found my confidence again,” Heise said. “I think just finding the confidence and having linemates that believe in me, and having teammates that believe in me, and having the backstops we have in goal, defence and forwards, it’s really hard to not go out there and play with the same swagger that I think we all, as players have. And it’s been a little bit of a mind shift for me.”
Quite a good shift for Minnesota, too: Heise is cooking when it matters.
The winner on Friday came with just over two minutes to go in the first, when Brodt picked a nice time to score her first PWHL goal. The winger, who was injured to open the year and returned to the ice for the last seven games of the regular season, jumped on a rebound off a Brittyn Fleming wrap-around attempt.
Brodt had been down on the ice a few seconds earlier, but picked herself up and saw the puck sitting in the blue paint, then stuffed it past Aerin Frankel. Brodt’s momentum sent her into the crossbar, and then she got down for an emphatic double fist-pump.
“It’s huge,” Minnesota coach Ken Klee said of Brodt’s goal. “She got in one game before the [international world championship] break and came into the team basically when we were not playing our best hockey. But she's stuck with it, she's been at the gym every day, rehab every day, working hard. Her teammates see it and they know how hard she's working. And I know that she wants to contribute — in some of the other games she wasn't getting many shifts. I think it's just a huge boost for our whole team.”
Boston had just five shots in the second period, but made one of them count, with only 1.4 seconds to go in the second. Alina Müller got a beautiful backhand pass from Susanna Tapani, and Müller and put it into a near open net, past a sprawling Nicole Hensley.
That kept Boston’s hopes alive, but then a little over three minutes into the third, Cava, who’s one of four Canadians on Minnesota’s roster, picked up a pass from Heise just outside the blueline, then tossed those defenders into a blender to make it 3-1.
Cava threw both arms up and skated up the boards, cheering along with the fans. She had eight points in 24 regular-season games, and in the playoffs, Cava is behind only Heise when it comes to playoff production, with six points.
“I think she has a lot of confidence in her playing and what she does,” Heise said, of her linemate. “Not to say that the beginning of the year that wasn't a thing, because we both have gone through ups and downs this entire year. We've had some injuries. We've been through the losing streak. We've been in the gutter. We've been feeling bad. But I think at the end of the day, great players step up in great moments, and this is definitely one of those.”
“That was very nice,” Cava said, laughing, sitting in the post-game press conference alongside her linemate. “I mean, playoffs is do or die. Obviously it's a super fun experience to win a championship, and obviously this is going to be the first one. So basically just do everything you can and use all the skill you have and all the energy you have and leave it all out there. So that's kind of what I try to do every single game.”
After serving up a shutout in Game 2 of this series, Hensley was again steady for Minnesota, making 16 saves for the win.
It was Rookie of the Year candidate Grace Zumwinkle who potted the empty-netter for Minnesota, and in dramatic fashion, while she was being dragged down by Boston captain Hilary knight. Zumwinkle slid into the net just after the puck did.
Boston wasn’t in the playoff picture until late in the season, and went on a run to get here, including sweeping Montreal in the opening series. “I feel like our backs have been up against the wall for some time,” said Boston coach Courtney Kessel. “We know what it’s like to fight back, and we’re going to continue to fight.”
Game 4 is Sunday night in Saint Paul, where Boston will have to fight to send this back home for Game 5. Minnesota, meanwhile, will have a chance to clinch an historic championship on home ice.
Heise says she hasn’t been thinking about what it’ll be like to win the first Walter Cup title, even if at the end of Game 3, Minnesota fans cheered: “We want the cup!”
“I want it to be a feeling that, when it happens, I want it to be electric,” Heise said.
