The Boston Pride took care of unfinished business Saturday, finishing off an Isobel Cup quest that was more than a year in the making with a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Whitecaps in the NWHL championship game at Warrior Ice Arena in Brighton.
This was the same matchup that was supposed to take place last March 13 in the 2020 Isobel Cup final, but that game was never played after everything got shut down by the coronavirus pandemic. The Pride had gone a remarkable 23-1-0 last season and cruised to a 5-1 win in the semifinals, but heartbreakingly never got a chance to finish the job.
The 2020-21 NWHL season proved to be a difficult one to complete. After scrapping plans for a 20-game regular season, the league settled on a shortened bubble model to be played in Lake Placid from Jan. 23-Feb. 5.
While they were able to get some regular-season games in, that plan ultimately didn’t hold up, as a slew of positive COVID-19 tests across the league -- including two teams having to withdraw -- forced the league to suspend the season before the four-team playoffs were able to start.
The Pride weren’t playing like the 2019-20 Pride in Lake Placid, going 1-3-0 in the regular-season portion of the schedule. But they finished strong in a play-in series against Buffalo, winning the final two games of the three-game series by a combined score of 13-1.
Their chance to prove they were still a championship-caliber team would once again have to wait, though -- nearly two months before the Isobel Cup playoffs would finally be played, now at their home Warrior Ice Arena in Brighton.
As it turns out, the Pride were very much still a championship team. They beat the Toronto Six, the No. 1 seed after Lake Placid, 6-2 in Friday’s semifinal, and then followed that up with a hard-fought win over Minnesota on Saturday.
The Whitecaps actually opened the scoring and led 1-0 after one, but the Pride took over in the second. Mary Parker tied the game 2:38 into the middle frame when she jammed home a second effort in front.
Jillian Dempsey gave Boston the lead with 4:52 left in the second on a snipe from the left circle, and then Lexie Laing made it 3-1 a couple minutes later with a five-on-three power-play goal off a nice feed from Christina Putigna.
Things got a bit hairy for the Pride in the third. After Boston’s Tori Sullivan couldn’t convert on a penalty shot, Minnesota made it 3-2 just 13 seconds later on Allie Thunstrom’s second goal of the game. The Whitecaps then got a power play a couple minutes after that, but the Pride killed it off.
The Pride then scored a power-play goal of their own a few minutes later to provide some insurance, but the Whitecaps kept fighting and again cut the lead to one with 19.4 seconds remaining. There was no miracle tying goal, though, and Boston hung on for the 4-3 win.
This is the Pride’s second Isobel Cup title, as they also won the first one back in 2016.