Frost fall to first-place Montreal as time runs low in the PWHL season

With a three-week international break ahead and just four PWHL regular-season games remaining, the Frost might have heard the clock ticking a little louder after Wednesday’s 4-1 loss to Montreal at Xcel Energy Center.

League-leading scorer Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey scored twice each to make the Victoire the first the team this season to clinch a spot in playoffs that won’t begin for almost a month.

Poulin scored the Victoire’s first and third goals, Stacey their second and fourth against the defending Walter Cup champion Frost, which has scored one goal in each of its past two games and is 2-4 in its past six games.

Stacey had two assists as well for a four-point night.

Poulin and Stacey supplied the offensive punch while goalkeeper Elaine Chuli made big saves that kept the Frost in the fourth and final playoff place in the six-team PWHL.

“These are important points coming to the end of the year,” Frost coach Ken Klee said. “We know that. We have one game before the break, but so does everyone else. That’s kind of an equalizer. It’s not a great time. We just have to play the schedule we get and for now watch the film and try to learn the things we can do better.”

The Frost on Wednesday came home to play at the Xcel Energy Center for the first time in 31 days, their longest stretch away from home this season. During that time, the arena held 10 Wild games, the Minnesota high school wrestling and boys hockey state tournaments, the NCHC College Hockey Frozen Faceoff and concerts by Mary J. Blige and Justin Timberlake.

They returned in fourth place, 10 points behind first-place Montreal.

The Frost have played three of the PWHL’s “Takeover Tour” games this season, neutral-site games against league opponents in an effort to grow the women’s game across North America. These games will also guide the league as it expands beyond its original six teams, quite likely as soon as next season.

This season, the Frost have played Montreal at Denver, Ottawa at Raleigh, N.C., and New York at Detroit, all in NHL arenas and markets. In their most recent game, a 4-1 loss to New York 10 days ago at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, they played in front of 14,288 fans. That set an attendance record for a professional women’s hockey game in the United States.

Wednesday’s game was played in front of an audience announced at 6,330.

“I didn’t think we were as sharp as I was hoping we were going to be,” Klee said. “What’s tough right now is just not being able to score goals. It’s tough to win games scoring one goal.”

Chuli helped assure that Wednesday, with a game-changing save midway through the third period on Michela Cava that kept Montreal in the lead at 2-1.

Less than 30 seconds later, Poulin scored on a spinning, falling shot that suddenly made it 3-1, not 2-2.

Stacey made it 4-1 with a 5-on-3 power-play goal at 14:40.

PWHL standings

“At that point in the game, having your goaltender back you up and make a save like that was huge,” Stacey said. “All of us on the bench couldn’t believe it. It was a huge save at a very important time that led to a lot of things happening for us after that. It was a big one and we definitely let her know it.”

Montreal stands three points ahead of second-place Toronto.

“It’s nice for sure,” Victoire coach Kori Cheverie said. “It was definitely an objective of ours that we have now achieved. We can celebrate it and enjoy it tonight. Then we just continue to push forward.”