After finishing first in the regular-season standings, the Montreal Victoire will open their 2026 Walter Cup playoffs against the defending champion Minnesota Frost. (Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)
Star Tribune via Getty Images
In the PWHL’s first three seasons, the Montreal Victoire have held first-round home-ice advantage every year. But they’re still looking for their franchise’s first playoff series win.
After eking out top spot in the regular-season standings following a shootout win over the Seattle Torrent in the final game of the 2025-26 regular season, this year’s Victoire have elected to jump into the eye of the hurricane immediately.
In the PWHL, the regular-season champion can choose its first-round opponent. This time around, the Victoire have elected to go up against the two-time defending champion Minnesota Frost.
“There’s no team in this league that is easy to beat,” said Victoire coach Kori Cheverie in a conference call on Monday. “As a collective here in Montreal, we decided to continue with our internal process of where we were and different things that we looked at. We landed on Minnesota, and we’re looking forward to that opportunity.”
As the two-time Walter Cup champions, the Frost have yet to lose a playoff series. But Montreal did hold a distinct edge in the regular-season series between the two teams, winning twice by shutout and twice in overtime.
“We’ve had different games against them that have gone to overtime,” Cheverie said. “We’ve had games that ended in regulation. We’ve had six on five and five v. six. With all the different scenarios, we’ve been through it all with Minnesota.”
For their part, the Frost are undaunted. They also started as a lower-seed in their two previous playoff runs, and were selected as the first-round opponent in 2024, when then PWHL Toronto won the regular-season championship.
“We were, moreso, looking at ‘Are we leaving this day to go to Boston or this day to go to Montreal?’" said Frost captain Kendall Coyne Schofield. “When we got the news, we were like, ‘All right, what’s the schedule?’ So we start preparing for Montreal, because that’s where we’re going. That’s where we’re told to go, and it’s out of our control. I think that’s our mindset, and we just get ready to go to work.”
This will be the first-ever playoff meeting between the Victoire and the Frost. In 2024, Minnesota went to the five-game limit in both its series, against Toronto and Boston. Last year, the Frost beat the Sceptres and then the Ottawa Charge, each in four games.
The Frost boast this season’s leading scorer — veteran Kelly Pannek finished first in the league in both goals (16) and points (33) in her best season to date. Minnesota also held a six-point cushion over the fourth-place Charge in the final standings for the 2025-26 season, but the Victoire may also have been reluctant to face the team that ousted them one year ago.
Montreal won its first regular-season title in 2025, but positions three through five were a dead heat in the standings. After applying the tiebreakers to the three teams with 44 points, Ottawa landed in third place, Minnesota in fourth and Boston just out of the playoffs in fifth.
Montreal picked Ottawa, but the Charge took out the Victoire in four games before facing the Frost in the Walter Cup final.
The Frost’s title defense will begin Saturday at Place Bell in Laval, Que.
Improving by 18 points from last season, Boston tied Montreal with 62 regular-season points but was relegated to the lower seed by virtue of the tiebreaker. Boasting shutout leader Aerin Frankel in net and Team USA’s golden goal-scorer Megan Keller as their captain, Boston will hold home-ice advantage as it faces Ottawa for the first time in post-season play.
All four regular-season games between the two sides were decided in extra time in the 2025-26 season. Three went to shootouts — which aren’t an option in the playoffs. Ottawa won the fourth in overtime at Tsongas Center in Lowell, Mass. last week, on Apr. 22.
“We have to respect our opponents,” said first-year Fleet coach Kris Sparre. “It’s definitely important to analyze and and pick up tendencies of the opposition, but we feel like we’re playing our best hockey and that we’re a really hard team to contain. We’re worried about our team first.”
After coaching her team to the final one year ago and getting an MVP performance from her goalie, Gwyneth Philips, Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod missed some time this season as she underwent treatment following a breast cancer diagnosis last November.
MacLeod was on Monday’s media call and will be back behind the bench when the Charge open their best-of-five series in Lowell on Thursday.
“For me, obviously, the last five — not being on the bench was was a challenge,” said MacLeod. “But in the same breath, our group made it quite easy for me. They just kept competing, and that’s all you can ask for as a coach. So, really thrilled that we’re at this part of the season and we’ll get this opportunity to go into the postseason. Really proud of our group.”
The Charge claimed the final playoff berth on the last day of the regular season, capping off a four-game winning streak with a 3-0 shutout of the Toronto Sceptres in a head-to-head clash which pushed the Sceptres out of the post-season for the first time.
Leading the way offensively for Ottawa was Rebecca Leslie, the 29-year-old who followed up seasons of one goal and two goals in her first two PWHL campaigns with a 14-goal breakout that tied her for second place in the league rankings, and included four game winners.
“She’s come up in such big moments for us this year,” said Ottawa captain Brianne Jenner. “It’s been really fun and a treat to see her really take off this year.”
When the PWHL’s first two expansion teams in Vancouver and Seattle built out their inaugural rosters last summer, there was immediate concern that the newcomers had acquired an unfair talent advantage that would vault them to the top of the table while handcuffing the league’s original six franchises.
That turned out not to be the case. All four teams in the playoffs are established squads that underwent significant roster reconstructions in the wake of the expansion draft. Meanwhile, the Goldeneyes and Torrent found themselves in a battle of a different type, for the first-overall pick in the 2026 PWHL draft.
To make that determination, the PWHL uses a tool called the ‘Gold Plan,’ where the team that accumulates the most standings points after being eliminated from playoff contention earns the best draft position. The lowest-ranked teams still get the best opportunity for success, but eliminated teams also receive an incentive to keep trying to win, rather than ‘tanking’ and losing games in order to improve draft position.
The Torrent were the first team eliminated but finished tied with the Goldeneyes in Gold Plan points, with five each. Vancouver earned the first pick based on the second tiebreaker — an overtime win over the Minnesota Frost in their final game, while the Torrent had an overtime and a shootout loss to go along with one regulation win after elimination.
The Goldeneyes were eliminated from playoff contention against the Torrent in Seattle on Apr. 18. But by erasing a 5-3 deficit in the last two minutes of regulation, then going on to earn a 6-5 overtime win, they gained the Gold Plan status necessary to edge out the Torrent.
“It’s very exciting to have the first pick, and then that includes the first pick each round,” said Vancouver general manager Cara Gardner Morey. “I think there’s a lot of great talent in that class, so there’s a lot of good players that are going to come out of there. It is pretty exciting that you have the control of the first pick, of who you would like to bring into this city and make a big impact on our program.”
Topping the list of talent coming out of college is 2026 Patty Kazmaier Award winner and Olympic MVP Caroline Harvey.
A 23-year-old defender out of the University of Wisconsin, Harvey has been in some battles with Goldeneyes defender and Ohio State product Sophie Jaques, also a Patty Kazmaier winner, at both the college and national team levels.
“I think that this year’s draft class is incredible,” Jaques said Monday as the Goldeneyes wrapped up their season. “No matter what pick you have, you’re going to get a great player. I think Harvey is someone who’s a great hockey player — a great offensive defenseman with a great mind. She’s proven herself on the international stage year after year. So, obviously excited to welcome a player like that onto our team, if we were to go that route. I think it would just be a lot of fun to get to play alongside of her.”
The date for the 2026 PWHL Draft has not yet been announced. Details should also soon be forthcoming about future expansion plans, when between two and four additional teams are expected to be added going into the league’s fourth season in 2026-27.
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