Toronto picked Minnesota as its semifinal opponent in the Professional Women's Hockey League playoffs starting Wednesday.
The PWHL in its first season introduced a playoff innovation in awarding the top team in the league after the regular season the choice between the third and fourth seeds for its semifinal foe.
Toronto had 24 hours from the end of its last game Sunday to make a decision.
Giving fourth-seeded Minnesota the nod Monday meant Montreal gets third seed Boston in the first round.
Toronto opens its best-of-five semifinal against Minnesota with the first two games Wednesday and Friday at Coca-Cola Coliseum.
Montreal starts Thursday and Saturday against Boston at Place Bell in Laval, Que.
The best-of-five final will be for the Walter Cup. New York and Ottawa finished outside the playoffs in the six-team league.
Toronto (13-4-0-7) topped the standings in the league's first season followed by No. 2 Montreal (10-3-5-6).
Boston and Minnesota had identical 8-3-4-9 records, with Boston ranked higher in the tiebreaker.
The higher seeds get home-ice advantage for games one, two, and five in each series.
Riding a four-game win streak into the post-season, Toronto had a choice of U.S. clubs headed in opposite directions.
Minnesota backed into the playoffs with a five-game losing streak to end its regular season.
The club hasn't won since the international break for the world championship despite some of the biggest names in the women's game in its lineup — Taylor Heise, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Grace Zumwinkle.
It was Toronto's 5-2 win in regulation time over Ottawa in Sunday's finale that both crushed Ottawa's post-season hopes and kept Minnesota in the final four.
Boston, meanwhile, capped their regular season winning four out of five. Their lone loss in that stretch was in a shootout to Ottawa.
Toronto went 2-1-0-1 versus Minnesota, including a 4-1 home win May 1 in Minnesota's last game.
Toronto was 3-0-0-2 versus Boston, including a 2-1 loss in their last meeting April 18.
Montreal, meanwhile, was 1-1-1-1 against Boston with the latter a 4-3 winner over Montreal at home Saturday to close out the regular season for both clubs.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2024.
The Canadian Press
