Frost jump out to quick start, outskate Sceptres to take 2-1 lead in playoff series

The homemade sign a resourceful fan brought to Xcel Energy Center on Sunday night could have applied in any number of situations during the Frost‘s wacky, wild, record-setting 7-5 playoff victory over Toronto.

With 12 goals, it was the highest-scoring game in the PWHL‘s two-year history. Twenty-one players put their names on the scoresheet. The Frost have recorded two of the league’s three all-time performances of seven or more goals in a game, including twice this month.

The sign might have inspired Frost forward Michela Cava — who scored twice and was one of 11 players who had multiple points — with these four words: “Cava Hot As Lava.”

The message could have applied as well to teammate Brooke McQuigge, who, like Cava, heated up and scored twice herself. Or to a Frost team that has scored 25 goals in its past five games after it struggled to score them at all late in the regular season.

The Frost have lost once in their past five games, having won their final two regular-season games at Ottawa and Boston just to make the postseason.

Cava rewarded the faithful fan whom she spotted with the sign behind one net by giving away a puck she received for being one of the game’s three stars.

“I’m not used to people holding up signs for me,” Cava said. “So I gave her a puck.”

Sunday was a coming-home party after two weeks away, and the Frost responded by scoring three times in the first eight minutes. Overall, Cava and McQuigge each scored twice and Liz Schepers, Sophie Jaques and Lee Stecklein (yes, again) each scored once against a Toronto team that they beat in five games in last year’s first round.

Cava credited some of the scoring surge to being home again, to the Frost players being back in their own beds. To seeing their friends and family and their dogs, including her beloved Mats.

“Everything that makes us happy,” she said.

The Frost lead the best-of-five series 2-1 and could advance to a second consecutive PWHL finals by beating the Sceptres in Game 4 on Wednesday night in St. Paul.

Cava scored both of her goals in the third period, including one in which she circled nearly the entire left circle before snapping a shot home from low in the slot. Her two goals increased the lead to 7-4 before Toronto made it a final two-goal margin with a late goal.

“I noticed nobody was coming to me,” said Cava, who had a chance for the hat trick but didn’t hit an empty net in the final minute.

The Sceptres chased the game to the end, getting within 3-1 after the first period and 5-4 early in the third. But Cava’s two goals restored a three-goal cushion and that was enough for the Frost to hold on.

Sunday’s game was not your usual tight-checking playoff affair, was it?

“No, it was not,” Frost coach Ken Klee said. “It was a fan’s dream and a coach’s nightmare. But you know what? We found a way to win, and that’s the most important thing. Definitely our team played hard. We’ve got to clean some things up because we know the next game will be a lot tougher.”

Toronto coach Troy Ryan lamented his team’s uncharacteristic penalties and what he called “compound errors and accumulation of back-to-back-to-back mistakes that are tough when you’re trying to get back in the game.”

BOXSCORE: Frost 7, Toronto 5

Ryan used his timeout in the first period after the Sceptres fell behind 3-0. He tried to find other ways to slow down what he called a “chaotic” game. “I even tried to sneak [a timeout] in on an icing there, but the refs weren’t having it,” Ryan said.

Klee called it a game unlike any other he has coached.

“Crazy game. Bounces hitting their players and going in, hitting our players and going in, for both sides,” Klee said. “It was just one of those nights. I don’t know how to describe it. I haven’t been a part of a game like that before.”