The Minnesota Frost were back at home to face the Montréal Victoire on Wednesday evening, Mar. 25, after taking down the Vancouver Goldeneyes on Saturday afternoon, Mar. 21, on the road. Their lineup remained the same as they were still without Kendall Coyne-Schofield. They held a brief moment of silence for a beloved NHL.com reporter, Jessi Pierce, who passed away in a house fire over the weekend alongside her three children and their dog, before the game, and then things got underway.
Maddie Rooney was in the net for the Frost, and the game started out pretty back-and-forth with both sides getting chances until the Victoire broke through in the final minutes of the second period. They added another goal early in the third to take a 2-0 lead, and the Frost tried to climb back in, but only dug a deeper hole they couldn’t get out of. They ended up falling to the Victoire 3-0. In this article, we’ll look at a few takeaways, starting with the missing energy.
Frost Missing Energy
The Frost typically have a pretty strong jump to their game, and it’s been present in their past five straight wins, but against the Victoire, they struggled to get it going. They had a lot of chances, but they missed that spark they’ve had, and it was lacking for most of the game. Again, they had their chances, but nothing would go through, and the Victoire were all over the puck.
This was the fourth straight win for the Victoire over the Frost and the final in their season series. If the Frost wants to do well in the postseason, they have to find a way to get their spark back and find another level when it comes to the Victoire because there’s a strong chance they could face them in the playoffs.
“I think like coach said, we weren’t at our sharpest, proud of us for continuing to stick to, but really just couldn’t find a way to get as much going as we were used to but always something to learn from the game and that’s what we’ll have to do from here,” said Lee Stecklein after the game to the media when asked how she felt about the game.
Frost Struggle Defensively
The Frost didn’t play a terrible game, but the little mistakes did come back to bite them. One was a turnover from behind the net that landed on an open Victoire stick in front of the Frost net, which led to the first goal. The second goal was more chaos in front of the net, and Maddie Rooney thought she had it covered, but the Victoire snuck it away and shot it in behind her.
The third goal was a result of a line change, and a Victoire player got in behind the changing defenders and sniped one past Rooney. The Frost had a few other times where their defense broke down, but they got lucky that Rooney was ready, or the puck didn’t make it through.
“The pass to the other team? Yeah, Kelly (Pannek), I heard something in the middle and so it was just a miscue there unfortunately, horrible time, horrible time anytime but really at the end of a period like that, a huge momentum shift so unfortunate but that’s hockey and mistakes happen and know our team’s got my back and got our back and and we wanted to find a way in and unfortunately just couldn’t today,” said Stecklein when asked about the first goal of the game.
Frost & Victoire Physical
The battle between the Frost and Victoire is always an interesting one, and the Victoire have had a strong season against the Frost. It was a physical battle from the first drop of the puck, and there were several hard hits that had players struggling to get back to their feet. The Frost kept trying to plug through and keep playing a physical game, but it didn’t help the scoreboard swing in their direction.
While the Frost can play a physical game, sometimes it takes away from their regular style, and they need to focus more on playing the puck than the body. Being physical isn’t always their style of play, and when it takes away from their game, they need to stop.
Related: Guide to the 2025-26 Minnesota Frost
“Yeah, obviously it was a tight game, I mean I think one, the other team was kind of looking for a break or a bounce, and they got theirs right at the end of the second which I think gave them some momentum, and we weren’t as sharp as we’d like to be but they’re a good hockey team so it’s, we’ve been on a good roll and we’re bound to have one of those every now and then, now we just gotta have a couple good days of practice and be set for Sunday,” said head coach Ken Klee to the media after the game.
The Frost will remain at home to host the Boston Fleet on Sunday afternoon, Mar. 29, to end the month. Hopefully, they can bounce back from this loss and come back stronger than before.
