Minnesota Frost’s bumpy regular season makes Saturday’s finale another must-win

The Minnesota Frost have been here before.

This time last year, they won 3-0 at Boston in a fifth and final game of the PWHL Finals that brought home the inaugural Walter Cup.

On Wednesday, they faced another elimination game and won 3-0 at Ottawa to keep their playoff hopes alive.

Now they need one more win in regulation time — in Boston, once again — to make the playoffs.

Lose or tie Saturday and they’re on the outside looking in.

“We’re excited; that’s one more game in front of us,” Frost defender Lee Stecklein said. “It’s going to be a great game. If we play like we did, that’s all we can do. They’re a good team. We saw a good bit of them last year, too.”

A win in regulation would tie the Frost with Boston, the team currently in third place, at 44 points. But the Frost would win the first tiebreaker for most regulation wins. Fourth-place Ottawa still is contending for third and fourth place or — like Boston or Minnesota — could fall out of playoff contention altogether.

“We know it’s going to be a battle,” Stecklein said. “We know it’s going to be a different game than any of the others we‘ve played before because we’re both playing a bit desperate.”

Stecklein on Wednesday scored two third-period goals — including a late open-netter — after teammate Kendall Coyne Schofield scored the game’s first goal late in the second period.

“It really felt like a great playoff game,” Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod said afterward. “You’re playing an opponent whose back is up against the wall. They’re the reigning champions. They were able to manage the moment well. So all credit to them. We just didn’t find our stride.”

Coyne Schofield is a six-time IIHF Women’s World Champion gold medal winner and a gold medal winner at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Stecklein is a three-time Olympian who, like Coyne Schofield, won gold in 2018.

They’re just two members of a Frost roster that have won collegiate, world and Olympic championships.

“They’ve been in gold medal games and Olympic gold medal games and obviously winning the Walter Cup and having an elimination games last year,” Frost coach Ken Klee said after Wednesday’s game. “Game 5 first round, Game 5 second round, I think they draw on it. It’s now or never. Our players stepped up and they were unbelievable.”