ST. PAUL, MN – The 2025–26 Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) season opened on Friday night at Grand Casino Arena, where the Toronto Sceptres edged the two-time defending Walter Cup champion Minnesota Frost 2–1, backed by a stellar 30-save performance from goaltender Raygan Kirk. Minnesota captain Kendall Coyne Schofield opened the scoring early in the first period to the delight of the 9,138 in attendance, but Toronto answered with less than three minutes remaining in the frame when defender Ella Shelton, making her Sceptres debut, hammered in a shot from down low to even the game at 1–1. 
Natalie Spooner earned the primary assist on the play, her first of two on the night. Toronto completed the comeback five minutes into the third period when rookie forward Kiara Zanon scored on the rush to give the Sceptres a 2–1 lead. Kirk shut the door from there, turning aside every Minnesota push the rest of the way to secure the first win of the new season. Maddie Rooney made 17 saves in net for Minnesota.
QUOTES
Toronto rookie Kiara Zanon on her first PWHL goal: “Any goal feels great, any time you can do it with this team, I think it’s going to be pretty special. The play itself was a very good breakout. Emma [Maltais] was in the middle of the ice helping me out, calling for it, so I knew where she was. I was able to break it to her in the middle and she made a great play to send me. I just shot it — just a quick break from a breakout, a good play up ice and I’m looking forward to getting that going some more.”
Sceptres Head Coach Troy Ryan on Raygan Kirk and the performance of the defence: “I thought she was great. The comment was just made that there wasn’t a lot of second and third opportunities. Just gave us a chance to play and a chance to win to be honest. In front of her, without Renata Fast playing, there’s a lot of minutes there that had to be eaten up by some of our D. We shortened the bench quite a bit, there was the injury [Watts, who returned] in the third period so we had to limit it from the back end. I thought they did a great job making sure that any rebounds that were left there were cleared. The combination of the D and Kirk was outstanding.”
Frost forward Taylor Heise on the pre-game celebration: “It was really special. I caught myself thinking back to those moments. I remember our celebration, and it brings back a lot of cool memories. Sometimes you forget that in the months of your training in the summer. It was fun to bring that back up, and it builds confidence that you can do it. Just to go and look upon all that hard work was great.”
Minnesota Head Coach Ken Klee on the team’s performance: “To be honest with you, our one line was buzzing pretty good to start but our other lines I thought struggled a little bit early, but then we kind of found our rhythm and got going. The games are going to be tight. We made two mistakes — individual mistakes, not even team or structure-wise, and they buried both of them. We hit four or five posts, and we had plenty of opportunities to score but we just have to finish.”
NOTABLES
Minnesota has lost two straight home openers in which they have raised a Walter Cup championship banner to the rafters.
Kiara Zanon became the first PWHL rookie since Minnesota’s Grace Zumwinkle (Jan. 3, 2024) to score a game-winning goal in their first career game. The Sceptres second-round pick also scored in both of the team’s preseason scrimmages.
Raygan Kirk has stopped 30 or more shots in four of her 11 career games. The second-year netminder also became the first Toronto goaltender to face, and stop, a penalty shot.
Kendall Coyne Schofield has scored a first-period goal in back-to-back season openers. The Frost captain led the team with 12 goals in 30 games in 2024-25.
Ella Shelton has recorded points in all three season-opening games of her PWHL career. The Sceptres’ draft-day trade acquisition picked up an assist for New York last season in Minnesota on Dec. 1, 2024, and famously scored the first goal in league history during the inaugural game in Toronto on Jan. 1, 2024.
Natalie Spooner recorded her first career multi-assist game and has contributed an assist in her first game of the season in back-to-back campaigns. Last season, her debut came at home against Minnesota on Feb. 11 after missing the team’s first 15 games while recovering from injury.
Emma Maltais has points in five straight appearances, including tonight’s assist, dating back to her single preseason scrimmage (2G) and three playoff games last season (1G, 3A). She also has points in back-to-back season-opening wins for the Sceptres.
Savannah Harmon recorded an assist after being held without a point in her first 14 games of last season split between Ottawa (6) and Toronto (8).
Britta Curl-Salemme and Kelly Pannek have both recorded an assist in back-to-back season openers for Minnesota.
The penalty shot taken by Pannek was just the second of the last two PWHL seasons and the fifth all-time. There has never been a successful penalty shot in league history.
Maddie Rooney made her first season-opening start of her career. This was the first time in three seasons in which she did not win her first start of the campaign.
Renata Fast was out of Toronto’s lineup tonight with an upper body injury. This is the first game she’s missed in her PWHL career.
Toronto had seven fresh faces in their lineup tonight, including Zanon and fellow draft picks Emma Gentry, Sara Hjalmarsson and Clara Van Wieren who all made their PWHL debuts. Shelton and offseason signees Claire Dalton and Clair DeGeorge all made their Sceptres debuts. 
Minnesota had six new players in the lineup, including draft picks Peyton Anderson, Kendall Cooper, Abby Hustler and Vanessa Upson who all made their PWHL debuts. Minnesota natives Madison Bizal (Elk River) and Sidney Morin (Minnetonka) both made their Frost debuts.
Denisa Křížová, re-acquired by Minnesota in a Thursday trade with Vancouver, is one of 17 Frost players who are returning members of the 2024-25 team that posed for a picture with the Walter Cup Championship Banner to close out the opening ceremony.
Minnesota outshot Toronto 31–19 tonight, continuing a trend from last season when they outshot the Sceptres in four of six regular-season meetings.
This was the first time in three seasons that Toronto has started on the road.
THREE STARS
1. Kiara Zanon (TOR) 1G
2. Kendall Coyne Schofield (MIN) 1G
3. Raygan Kirk (TOR) 30/31 SV
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