Montreal Victoire select Ottawa Charge as 1st-round opponent in PWHL playoffs

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PWHL

The Montreal Victoire volition look the Ottawa Charge successful the opening circular of the Professional Women's Hockey League playoffs.

Toronto Sceptres volition look Walter Cup-champion Minnesota Frost successful different semifinal

The Canadian Press

· Posted: May 04, 2025 9:34 PM EDT | Last Updated: 12 minutes ago

The Montreal Victoire volition look the Ottawa Charge successful the opening circular of the Professional Women's Hockey League playoffs.

Montreal wide manager Daniele Sauvageau announced the enactment of Ottawa arsenic its archetypal hostile connected Sunday connected the league's "Jocks successful Jills" podcast.

The regular-season PWHL champion has the enactment of selecting either the 3rd effect oregon the 4th effect to look successful a best-of-five first-round series.

"We've been preparing for this each twelvemonth should we beryllium successful this position," Victoire caput manager Kori Cheverie said connected a league telephone Sunday, without giving distant excessively overmuch of what went into the process of selecting the third-seeded Charge.

Ottawa finished up of fourth-place Minnesota done a tiebreaker aft the Charge, Frost and Boston Fleet finished the play tied astatine 44 points.

WATCH | Poulin leads 1st-place Victoire past Sirens successful last crippled of regular season:

Mrázová's overtime victor sends Charge to PWHL postseason for 1st time

Czech calved Kateřina Mrázová's of Ottawa Charge scores the overtime victor giving Ottawa a 2-1 triumph implicit Toronto Sceptres Saturday successful PWHL action.

Game 1 of the Charge-Victoire bid goes Thursday astatine Place Bell astatine 7 p.m. ET.

Cheverie said the squad made the determination connected its hostile Sunday.

"We took each the clip we could arsenic an enactment to marque definite we had each the accusation that we wanted to have," she said.

The Victoire's determination means the second-seeded Toronto Sceptres volition look the Frost successful the archetypal circular for the 2nd consecutive year, with Game 1 Wednesday astatine Coca-Cola Coliseum astatine 7 p.m. ET.

Toronto earned location crystal vantage by finishing 2nd successful the standings. No substance however the semifinals play out, a Canadian squad is guaranteed a spot PWHL final to vie successful a best-of-five bid for the Walter Cup.

The Charge, who are successful the playoffs for the archetypal time, won their past 2 regular-season games against the Victoire aft losing the archetypal four.

WATCH | Mrázová's OT victor sends Charge playoffs:

Poulin leads 1st-place Victoire past Sirens successful last crippled of regular season

Marie-Philip Poulin scored her PWHL-leading 18th and 19th goals of the play successful Montreal's 3-2 triumph implicit New York. The Victoire secured archetypal spot successful the PWHL earlier successful the time aft Toronto mislaid 2-1 successful overtime to Ottawa.

In the inaugural 2024 season, the regular-season-champion Sceptres elected to look the fourth-seeded Frost successful the archetypal round. Minnesota went connected to upset Toronto earlier defeating the Fleet successful the last to assertion the archetypal Walter Cup.

Boston swept the second-seeded Victoire successful the archetypal circular successful 2024. Cheverie said the 3 games were among the champion her squad played contempt the result.

"We tin speech astir past twelvemonth each we want, it was a acquisition for each of us," Victoire skipper Marie-Philip Poulin said.

"Series are hard," she added. "That was hard past year, it volition beryllium harder this year, truthful it's up to america to beryllium ready."

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