The Ice Garden 2025 PWHL Semifinal Predictions Roundtable

The gauntlet has been thrown down, the pick has been made, the fates have decided that the Montreal Victoire will be playing the Ottawa Charge in the first round of the 2025 PWHL Playoffs.

Who wins? How many games? How do you think the series is going to go?

Lydia: No offense to Ottawa, but I’ll be more stunned if they win this series than I was when Boston swept Montréal last year. This Victoire team has been atop the league nearly all season, and they’ve learned from last year’s mistakes. They won the first four games of the season series before Ottawa rallied to take the last two, including one after Worlds, when the Victoire had little to play for and the Charge needed every point they could get. That said, I don’t think it’ll be a blowout. Montréal only outscored Ottawa 15-12 in the series, so I expect this to be full of close games. I suspect Ottawa will win a game at home, but my official prediction is Victoire in four. They’re simply the better team.

Mike: Here's a not-so-bold prediction for you: Montreal will not fizzle out like they did in last year's playoffs. That is bad news for the Ottawa Charge. 

I like Ottawa a lot and feel that they have come a long way, but they simply don't measure up to the depth that Montreal has at every position. I'm giving Ottawa one win here because they might have giant-killing in their DNA but this could very easily be a sweep, that's how special the Victoire are. I foresee Montreal winning this series at even strength and getting more offense from their top-nine forwards than the Charge.

Geremy: This feels like Montreal vs Boston 2.0 from last year and that’s not because Gwenyth Philips is also a Northeastern graduate. Both Montreal and Ottawa are pretty similar in terms of offensive numbers and shot suppression numbers since Philips stepped into the starting role. Desbiens is on fire, Marie-Philip Poulin is on fire, and the finished first for a reason. Last year Montreal had major scoring at even-strength problems in the playoffs. This year the numbers indicate that Montreal should be in a good spot to turn those 2-1 OT losses into 2-1 OT wins. Ottawa is probably going to have a goals outburst to win a game before finally Montreal ends the series. With all this in mind I’m taking Montreal in four games.

A rematch is set to take place between the Toronto Sceptres and Minnesota Frost after last year where the Frost reverse swept the Sceptres in painful fashion.

Do the Sceptres reclaim their throne from the Frost? Are we seeing another full length series? Who will be the heroes of the land?

Lydia: I expanded more on it in my preview but yes, I believe the Sceptres exorcise their demons and reclaim their throne from the Frost. They again enter this series as the better team, and it’s hard to believe they’ll find a way to blow it two years in a row. It’ll be a close series, and I was torn whether I wanted to say it’d end in four or five games. I wouldn’t be surprised either way. However, I stuck with four because the Sceptres have a big advantage early after being home for so long while the Frost have been on the road. Plus, they’ll want to set the tone that they are not about to miss out on a trip to the Walter Cup two years in a row, and should they jump out to a 2-0 series lead, it’s hard to imagine they’ll allow the Frost to push it to Game 5 again.

Geremy: This might be a more lopsided series than Montreal vs Ottawa. Montreal kind of screwed over Toronto here by giving them an opponent who is a match up nightmare. Toronto has struggled all season to score at even strength and is in the playoffs because of a win streak powered by a power play that was operating at 44% efficiency at its peak. Toronto scored fewer even-strength goals than New York this season, they were the worst at scoring at even-strength. Minnesota is the best team at scoring at even-strength. Up and down the line-up these two teams are near clones of each other statistically except when it comes to scoring, the thing that sunk Toronto last year when their MVP in Natalie Spooner went down. This series goes four games but Minnesota takes a trip to the Walter Cup Final again.