Turnbull lauds Sceptres' physicality ahead of Game 2 vs. Frost
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The Toronto Sceptres jumped out to a 1-0 series lead after knocking off the defending-champion Minnesota Frost 3-2 on home ice in Wednesday's series opener.
Sceptres captain Blayre Turnbull scored the opening goal in the first period, and Julia Gosling added two goals of her own to give Toronto the victory.
Turnbull joined OverDrive on TSN1050 on Thursday to discuss the win, her takeaways from the game and what she expects moving forward in the series.
"I think we did a really good job on Wednesday of being physical on the forecheck, physical in the neutral zone," Turnbull said.
"I also noticed one thing from our team that I really liked in Game 1 was it seemed like our discipline to really commit to playing our team's system was elevated, so I thought that was a really promising thing for our team to step up in the playoffs."
This series against Minnesota is a rematch of last year's semi-final, in which the Frost eliminated the Sceptres in five games on their way to earning the first Walter Cup in league history.
Turnbull is expecting the series to take a shift in Game 2 after Toronto peppered Minnesota's Nicole Hensley with shots and chances throughout the game.
"When we faced Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs last year, what I noticed was that they made adjustments every game," Turnbull said. "I know that our game on Friday will be much different from the game we just played because they're a team that will make a lot of adjustments to try to shut our game down but also try to expose some areas of our game that they see they can take advantage of."
Minnesota led the PWHL in scoring (85 goals) in the regular season, and their goal differential (+9) trailed only the Sceptres (+10).
Turnbull was encouraged by the defensive performance in Game 1, where the Sceptres held the Frost to only 26 shots on goal, and thinks a repeat of that effort will be key to a repeat of the result from the series opener.
"It could be easy to be really happy with getting that first win and take our foot off the gas a bit heading into Game 2 but I think we're well aware that Minnesota's a great team, they're going to make adjustments and they're going to be even better in Game 2," Turnbull said. "We have to be ready to go and for us it will be the same goal, try to get on the scoreboard early, but I think we know that they're going to throw a lot of pucks on net and we have to try to shut things down defensively a little bit better."
Toronto tied the Montreal Victoire for the top PWHL team on home ice this season (7-2-3-3), while their points total on the road ranked ahead of only the Boston Fleet in the regular season.
Which makes Game 2 at Coca-Cola Coliseum that much more important for Toronto take another step towards locking up the series victory.
"Our fans have shown up for us all season," Turnbull said of the crowd at Coca-Cola Coliseum. "We were able to set the attendance record throughout the regular season for our league, which is awesome, and they showed up again [on Wednesday], so it was a great atmosphere for us to play in."