Sceptres Gameday: a chance to clinch before Worlds

Toronto Sceptres @ Minnesota Frost
1:00 PM ET @ Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul
Watch in Minneapolis/St. Paul Area: FanDuel Sports Network
Watch in Canada: TSN5

Watch Outside of Canada: PWHL YouTube and thepwhl.com.

Standings

Toronto is currently in second place with 45 points, three behind Montréal who have already clinched a playoff spot. As of this morning, everyone has four more games to play.

Boston lost yesterday, meaning Toronto maintains their five-point advantage over the Fleet.

Any point gained by the Sceptres today clinches a playoff spot, but more importantly for the remaining games of the season, Toronto leads the league in Regulation Wins which is the first tiebreaker in the standings. Keeping that number higher than everyone else gives them a chance to win any tie in the ultimate standings. Regulation Wins are denoted by "W" on the PWHL standings page.

Toronto’s 4-2 victory at Boston on Wednesday was the Sceptres’ ninth win this season by multiple goals. That is the second-most such wins by any team in a single PWHL season, behind only the 10 multi-goal wins Toronto had last season.

The Frost have dropped three straight games with the last two each coming by at least three goals. It is the second time Minnesota has ever lost consecutive games, each by at least three goals, along with its last two regular-season games of last season.

Minnesota, last year's champion and a team that started out this season pretty strong, is currently in fifth place and out of a playoff spot. They are one point behind fourth-place Ottawa, so they are not out of the picture by any means. That means they will be gunning for points of any kind today.

Schedule

The PWHL has two more games after today's contest. New York play Montréal on Tuesday and Ottawa play Boston on Wednesday. That will give every team three games to play after Worlds.

Worlds runs from April 9 to the Championship Game on April 20. By the way, the event is in Czechia, so the games are on primarily in the afternoon in North America. We'll have more on the event closer to the start date.

After Worlds, the PWHL resumes on Saturday, April 26 with all six teams in action. Toronto plays Boston. The final game is against Ottawa on Saturday May 3 at Coca-Cola Coliseum. A lot of times for those games are still to be determined.