SAD NEWS: Toronto is successfully quashed out of semifinals due to…

A video was filmed with the 1½-year-old son of Toronto’s PWHL leading scorer and odds-on favourite for first league MVP Nataliie Spooner.

In the video, Spooner’s son Rory, who is in his mother’s lap, tosses a ball in the direction of two tubs, one representing Minnesota and the other Boston. When the ball lands in the Minnesota tub, proud mom Natalie proclaims: “I guess we’re playing Minnesota.”

As head coach Troy Ryan explained yesterday, “It’s tough to get mad at a baby.

“We kind of used Rory as a bit of a decoy there to take the pressure off us … Just having some fun with it,” he said. But now it’s down to business.

 EXPECTATIOS

In Toronto and Minnesota, you have two of the more defensive-minded teams in the league. Both teams have strong goaltending with Kristen Campbell in Toronto’s net and one of Nicole Hensley or Maddie Rooney in the other. All three finished in the top five in goals against average in the league.

Toronto has given up 50 goals, fewest in the league. Minnesota is second, having given up 54.

Toronto, though, also led the league in scoring with 69 goals for. Minnesota was middle of the pack, scoring 54.

Overall, a low-scoring series is expected.

The outlier could be Toronto’s power play. It has been coming on the last three or four games, and Minnesota’s penalty kill is by far the worst in the league.

Both teams have firepower up front. In Toronto that comes in the form of Spooner, the league’s leading goal scorer by a wide margin, and Sarah Nurse, whose 11 goals are tied with Minnesota’s Grace Zumwinkle for next best.

Zumwinkle leads the Minnesota offence, but a team would ignore Taylor Heise at its own peril. Heise missed some time this season after incurring an injury during the U.S.-Canada Rivalry Series, but she has the kind of individual talent that can change a game in a hurry if she is not accounted for defensively.

Toronto also has Hannah Miller, a 13th-round pick who accounted for seven goals, something only 13 players in the league can claim. She’s seeing time on the power play now too and could be an offensive force.

Minnesota has its own whirling dervish in veteran Kendall Coyne Schofield. Schofield’s speed alone gets her plenty of scoring chances and her penchant for finding the puck around the net is second to none on the Minnesota team.

Look for Lee Stecklein, one of the premiere defenders in the league along with partner Natalie Buchbinder, to draw the netfront assignment when Spooner is on the ice. Spooner is not one to be moved easily, but look for these two to make her life in and around the Minnesota net as miserable as possible.

Zumwinkle and Heise will also draw attention but not in the same way. Those two do damage from all over the offensive zone and as Ryan explained yesterday Toronto prefers to defend opposing stars with a five-player unit.

“We have always had the same approach for (opponents who are dangerous) and Heise is definitely one of those,” Ryan said. “I think Zumwinkle as well can be very dangerous. We’ve always kind of had a shared approach with it. We don’t want one person marking or shadowing her all over the ice. We just know it’s a shared responsibility so if you are on the ice against a player like that, you need to recognize what her strengths are and how dangerous she can be and play accordingly.

Sometimes to do that you may have to sacrifice. You may have to accept the fact that you may have to give up some of your own offensive game that you know makes you successful, knowing that if we can shut those players down we can beat them with our depth.”