Best-of-three series come to the Premier Hockey Federation's playoffs this weekend. Beyond first glance, that might not be the disadvantage it seems for a Minnesota Whitecaps team Boston-bound to play the two-time defending league champion Pride.
Fourth among seven teams in the PHF regular season with a 10-11-3 record, the Whitecaps play first-place Boston (19-4-1) in one semifinal series while the third-seeded Connecticut Whale visit the second-seeded Toronto Six.
Boston and Toronto potentially will play all three games at home, which isn't necessarily daunting for the Whitecaps. They went 7-3-2 on the road and 3-8-1 at home this season.
The two teams will play at Bentley Arena in suburban Boston starting Thursday.
"It kind of feels like that," Whitecaps coach Ronda Engelhardt said when asked if her team has been better on the road than at home for its first season in Richfield Arena. "Maybe the results weren't what we always wanted, but we strung together some quality games."
The series winner advances to a neutral-site championship game at the NHL's Arizona Coyotes' temporary home arena in Tempe, Ariz., on March 26.
Minnesota won the Isobel Cup in 2019, and Boston won it in both 2021 and 2022.
Moved from Tria Rink in St. Paul to Richfield, the Whitecaps' 2022-2023 was uneven, to say the least. They lost their first four games — two home, two away — in November. Then they went 10-2 the next three months before they lost eight consecutive games in February and March to end the regular season. Six of those eight were at home.
