PWHL Minnesota's took home the Walter Cup title, the inaugural champions of the PWHL. Perhaps no team had a more memorable climb to glory, nor a faster fall from it. PWHL Minnesota found their identity this season and created a culture, but it's one with many question marks moving ahead toward year two.
Here is a look back at what PWHL Minnesota was able to develop in their first season.
Key Staff: GM (departed) Natalie Darwitz, Coach Ken Klee
Team leaders: Kendall Coyne-Schofield, Lee Stecklein, Kelly Pannek
Without resorting to revisionist history, the identity of Minnesota’s team at the start of the season, put together by one of the state’s hockey legends, Natalie Darwitz, was a strong blend of homegrown talent and speedy, skilled forwards.
With the benefit of #1 draft pick Taylor Heise, they opened the season set to fire on all cylinders offensively. And they did just that, winning their first three games and establishing themselves at or near the top of the standings.
New Coach Early On
Replacing coach Charlie Burggraf in training camp with former Team USA bench boss Ken Klee didn’t seem to disturb the chemistry the team already had in place. Klee summed up his relationship with the players he already knew in Minnesota: “Obviously I had some familiarity with Kendall (Coyne), Lee (Stecklein), Nicole (Hensley), Kelly (Pannek), our core leaders, so I definitely felt comfortable. “
The only bump in the road that appeared was the injury to Heise at the Rivalry Series in February. She missed five games and didn’t return until March 3, but the team survived her absence and stayed in a top position.
The trade
GM Darwitz also pulled off a successful trade after only nine games in the season, exchanging veteran forward Susanna Tapani for defender Sophie Jaques, a defender with tremendous upside. It seemed to work out well for both teams and further established Minnesota as a strong favorite.
The rift that changed it all
But a team’s culture has a lot more to do with off-ice actions and communication among the players and staff. From the outside (and with hindsight), we can see that everyone seemed to give the right answers publicly, but since the end of the season, some rumblings emerged that behind the scenes there was a power struggle and deep divide on the team. According to sources, as reported in THN , the rift centered between Klee and Darwitz, possibly with Coyne-Schofield and others taking the side of the coach.
Whether or not the veteran core had different privileges, the star on the ice was easily rookie Grace Zumwinkle, who finished the season with 19 points (11 goals, 8 assists). For some reason, though, Zumwinkle was not an active member of Team USA when they went to the World Championships in April.
Still, Minnesota cruised into the break just one point behind first-place Toronto, confident that the playoffs were a certainty. However, in a complete reversal of what PWHL Boston managed to do out of the break, Minnesota failed to win a single one of their last five games. They hung on nervously while Ottawa lost on the final day to even allow them to qualify. It’s fair now to wonder when or if any dissension worsened or began to show through the team play.
Captain Kendall Coyne Schofield
With the benefit of retrospect, there were only a couple of moments during the season-ending losing streak when the captain or the coach appeared unhappy with the press or gave answers that were a little bit condescending, but still, they were nothing that would’ve stood out as animosity.
When I asked Coyne Schofield about any bumps and bruises going down the stretch of the season, she looked annoyed and laughed, saying, “I’m not going to tell you if I’m injured,” and then explained that none of the players are feeling great or are at 100%.
As a leader, Coyne is known for her ferocious competitiveness and steely demeanour behind the scenes. You don’t get as far as she has without being incredibly determined as well as highly talented. To come back from pregnancy and get back to playing shape where she excelled and led players on the ice is a huge accomplishment for which she is rightly lauded.
Before the fifth game of the finals, I asked both Klee and Coyne about the human factor of going through the season and they both spoke glowingly about how much the year meant. Klee described her as a “force of nature” and marvelled at how she was handling the rigors of motherhood, training, representing the league, and being a professional.
Coyne said it was a deeply significant year for her, with her son able to be part of it and all of the firsts for the sport. They both seemed determined to finish the season with a championship and nothing less. The team unquestionably had a lot of fans cheering for them because of how hard they had fought. Knowing now that the division behind the scenes was already in motion casts a somber light on the final series.
The Rise To Glory, And The Fall From Glory
Winning solves a lot of ills, and Minnesota’s turnaround in the playoffs gave the team a lot of positivity to work with. The combined efforts of veterans and newcomers succeeded gloriously on the ice, the coaching of Klee pressed all the right buttons, including rotating goalies, and the leadership of Coyne Schofield obviously inspired her teammates.
Yet it came out after Darwitz’s dismissal that the league had conducted a review of all six teams during the season and that in Minnesota, the situation was unworkable.
Without specific details, league management said it was “impossible to move forward with all of the personnel on board.” The split appeared to be between the camp supporting coach Klee, and the others who were loyal to GM Darwitz.
According to sources who spoke to The Hockey News , there are also allegations about Klee using inappropriate language . It harkens back to the issues of Mike Babcock in the NHL, where old-school or outdated belittling tactics simply aren’t acceptable.
Klee spoke to the style of coaching he adopted during the year during the Walter Cup post-game press conference:
“To get on the ice with me every day where I’m demanding on them to sprint make hard plays every day, it was good but it obviously took some time, so for them it was an adjustment period, but that’s my job.”
The lack of clarity about what happened and where responsibility lies is now a part of the story of PWHL Minnesota’s first season. Fans deserve so much better, and the team’s success ought not to be tarnished by these rumors and concerns. There is a lot that can be done here to reassure the team’s fans and community of the PWHL that the commitment is to transparency and cohesiveness.
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