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Simply put, PWHL Toronto had no answer for Taylor Heise.
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Playing its third game of the inaugural season of the PWHL, Toronto knew going in it would have its hands full with a high scoring and unbeaten Minnesota entry.
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Heise and Grace Zumwinkle, who leads the PWHL with four goals through three games, were focuses going into the game.
Toronto head coach Troy Ryan spent the bulk of his practice before heading to Minnesota working specifically on taking away the ice Minnesota snipers prefer to occupy and ways to angle them away from those areas.
Zumwinkle, who had a hat trick in Minnesota’s second game, was kept under wraps, but the same could not be said of Heise, who was involved in all three goals including scoring two of them in a 3-1 Minnesota win.
Toronto outshot Minnesota 9-6 in the opening period and had two power plays, but failed to get one past Minnesota goaltender Nicole Hensley, who was solid all night.
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Heise opened the scoring by beating Renata Fast wide and then tucked in around Allie Munro before sliding one under Kristen Campbell for the game’s first goal.
But the bigger Toronto error came on the second goal when Heise scored what has to be the early leader for prettiest goal of the PWHL season.
Heise was somehow left alone between Toronto’s defence and its goalkeeper midway through the second period and made Toronto pay.
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Heise collected the puck at the Toronto blue line and walked in untouched, had Campbell thinking she was going backhand only to pull it back to her forehand and roof it over Campbell’s glove for the eventual winning goal.
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Heise, the collegiate player of the year last season and the No. 1 pick in the first-ever PWHL draft was also primarily responsible for Minnesota’s third goal skating around the periphery of the attacking zone before her pass found the tape on team captain Kendall Coyne Schofield’s stick parked in front of the net. All Coyne Schofield had to do was re-direct it into the net for the insurance marker.
With the win, Minnesota improved to 3-0, the only undefeated team remaining in the PWHL. Toronto fell to 1-2 and will head home to take on Ottawa on Saturday.
Campbell gave up the three goals but was the difference between this one being a blowout and a close game.
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Campbell stopped 26 of the 29 shots she faced. Heise was just one of a handful of Minnesota forwards that came in untouched on Campbell who had to be at her best just to keep Toronto in the game.
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Toronto’s lone goal was the first of Sarah Nurse’s PWHL career.
Trailing 1-0 early in the second period, Toronto came out hard putting tons of pressure on the Minnesota defence. Nurse got the equalizer as Munro won a puck battle along the boards and centred a pass to Nurse who one-timed it home to tie the game.
Nurse was involved in the game’s scariest moment midway through the third when she went sliding into the end boards hard by Kelly Pannek on a Toronto rush with no opportunity to slow down her momentum.
There was no call on the play. Complicating the situation was Pannek wound up right on top of Nurse as she slid into the boards hard. She appeared to be favouring her ribs after the collision and needed some help getting up and getting to the bench. She also may have hit her head as she went into the boards.
Nurse did return to the ice for one more shift but she’ll likely get a lot of attention today as the team monitors her condition.
Toronto owned the play in the first period of this one, but could not beat Hensley, who was strong in the Minnesota net stopping all but one of Toronto’s 32 shots.
Toronto takes the ice Saturday at home for the second time this year hosting an Ottawa team that has not played since last week.
Ottawa was scheduled to play in Boston on Monday but weather conditions prevented Ottawa from making the trip with the game re-scheduled for Feb. 19.
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