Playoff Recap: S01P01
The regular season is done. The brackets are set. Eight teams, four Quarter-Final series, and a best-of-three format that leaves no room for patience or bad starts. Game 1 of each series was played today, and The Ice—as if it had been conserving something—delivered a first night of playoffs that answered almost nothing and asked everything. Three of four games required extra time. Luca Ferretti and Philippe Dubois each won a shootout. Yūma Hayashi ended a game at 14:04 of overtime in Tokyo and a building that doesn't sleep went ahead and proved it. C'est le début. On est là.
TOK 6 — MCM 5 (OT)
The Neon Crossing was ready for a fight and got one—literally, at 0:27, when Shūta Tanaka ran Chris Elliot into the boards and they were both invited to The Sixth for five minutes each. Ren Inoue exploited the open ice that followed and gave Tokyo the lead at 0:41, Riku Mori with the setup. The Tokyo Titans in a playoff opener: they do not ease in.
McMurdo answered with authority. Natasha Borova converted a power play at 3:02—Tobias Frey assisting—then scored again at 5:45, Frey feeding her a second time. Amira Hassan added a third at 11:59, Elliot returning the favour after his own trip to The Sixth, and the Monoliths led 3-1 after twenty minutes.
The second period didn't calm anything down. Elliot extended it to 1-4 on the power play—Sven Lindberg threading the pass—before Hina Takahashi pulled one back for Tokyo. Riku Mori and Ji-hoon Baek dropped the gloves at 10:37, earned matching majors, and left the ice to a building that was no longer sure what it was watching. Shūta Tanaka converted a power play at 13:35—Yūma Hayashi with the assist—and Tokyo went into the third down only one.
Three more goals in the third. Yuki Sato tied it at 3:29. Ji-hoon Baek put McMurdo ahead again at 6:55, Elena Varga feeding him through traffic. Mio Kobayashi leveled it a second time at 10:32, Inoue back in the play with the assist. Five-all. In overtime—which nearly lasted the full twenty minutes—Hayashi received a pass from Haruto Nakamura at 14:04 and buried it. Borova's brace, Elliot's goal and assist, none of it enough. Quel match pour commencer les séries.
Series: Tokyo leads 1–0.
RIM 4 — USH 3 (SO)
The Coastal Pavilion is not a venue that rewards anxiety. This game tried its best to produce some anyway, and Rimini spent three periods and a shootout earning a result that was never comfortable.
The Ushuaia Undertow took the early lead—Agustín Medina at 8:36, Nicolás Sosa with the assist—but not before Chiara Ricci and Tomás Peralta had settled a disagreement at 2:45 and both departed for five minutes. The Undertow led 0-1 through one period, and the Coastal Pavilion had reason to be nervous.
Rimini turned it entirely in the second. With Facundo Álvarez serving a penalty at 1:46, Francesca Serra converted the power play at 3:35—Giulia Bianchi assisting—and the building exhaled. Elena Moretti made it 2-1 at 5:03, Ricci picking up her second point. Álvarez answered at 9:14 for Ushuaia—Medina with the setup—and tightened it back up, before Luca Ferretti put Rimini ahead for good at 10:11, Marco Rossetti feeding him. Three-two after two.
Florencia Ramos tied it for the Undertow at 7:22 of the third—Sosa's second assist of the night. Neither team found a winner in overtime. In the shootout, it was Ferretti at 5:31—same player who'd scored in the second—finishing what he'd started. Ferretti finishes with a goal, two hits, and the only shot that mattered in the end. Les Rinklers tiennent bon.
Series: Rimini leads 1–0.
PER 4 — HAV 2
At The Red Furnace, the Perth Pyres delivered the most emphatic result of the evening—no overtime, no shootout, a clean 4-2 win that felt controlled from the second period onward. The Havana Hammers will need to find different answers for Game 2.
The first period was even. Cooper Hale converted a power play at 2:50—Orlando Machado had taken an early penalty and Perth made him pay immediately, Nate Hargrove with the setup. Lázaro Valdés tied it for Havana at 12:02, Claudia Pérez assisting, and The Red Furnace kept its temperature.
Tahlia Nguyen changed the game. Her power play goal at 11:12 of the second—Hargrove with his second assist—put Perth ahead 2-1 and she was not finished. Mia Thornton and Yarelys González had dropped the gloves at 6:44 earlier in the period—coincidental majors, temperature rising—and Claudia Pérez took an additional penalty at 7:01 that created the opportunity Nguyen exploited.
The third was Perth's. Nguyen scored again at 1:57—Sienna Kapoor threading it through—for a 3-1 lead. Valdés kept Havana alive at 2:59, his second of the night, pressing. But Jack Mitchell sealed it at 11:03—Zara Patel with the assist—and the final scoreline reflects a game Perth never relinquished. Nguyen finishes with two goals. Hargrove with two assists and nothing wasted. Lázaro Valdés scores twice in a loss and looks dangerous regardless. Havana needs more in Game 2.
Series: Perth leads 1–0.
GDL 5 — MTL 6 (SO)
Someone forgot to tell El Rincón Perdido that this was supposed to be a measured playoff opener. Seven goals in the first period. Sept buts. Vingt minutes. The Guadalajara Gatos and the Montréal Maples did not warm up—they detonated.
Chloé Moreau scored at 0:12, Marc-Antoine Dufresne with the assist. By 14:47, seven goals had been scored, the lead had changed hands three times, and both benches looked like they'd played a full game already. Tremblay, Gagnon, and Dmitri Volkov—who converted a power play at 10:55 ten seconds after Camila Flores was called—scored for Montréal. Sofía Navarro, Daniela Salazar, and Flores scored for Guadalajara. Three-four Montréal after one. The building had no idea what to do with that.
Two more in the second. Salazar tied it for Guadalajara at 1:21—Diego Hernández assisting. Catherine Lavoie and Hernández fought at 5:45 and departed together, and with Carlos Morales called at 6:23, Jean-François Tremblay converted the power play at 6:36, Élodie Gagnon picking up her second assist of the night. Four-five Montréal after two periods and nine goals.
Morales tied it at 4:02 of the third—Salazar with her third point of the night. Sarah-Maude Fortin and Sofía Navarro dropped the gloves at 7:41—coincidental majors, the building roaring. Overtime settled nothing. Then the shootout, and Philippe Dubois—who has now closed two playoff-bound shootouts in this organization's recent memory—picked the corner at 4:31. Montréal wins on the road. Salazar finishes with two goals, an assist, a hit, and the wrong side of the scorecard. That is the cost of playing Montréal right now.
Series: Montréal leads 1–0.
Three home teams won. The Montréal Maples—who won eight of the final nine regular-season matchdays and somehow remain the road team in their own bracket story—took one anyway. Every series is 1-0. No team is safe, no series is over, and the best-of-three format is already doing what it was designed to do: remove patience as an option.
Game 2 approaches. The Ice has been watching.
À la prochaine.
—JM Laflèche, Voice of Hockay
Le Council acknowledges that Playoff Matchday 1 occurred on schedule and consistent with the bracket released with what Le Council describes as appropriate institutional gravitas. Three of four Quarter-Final games required extra time to resolve. Le Council attributes this to elevated competitive stakes and is not investigating further. The Montréal Maples have won on the road in Guadalajara. Le Council has been informed of this result, has noted it, and has chosen not to issue a separate advisory at this time. All four series are now 1–0 in favour of the home team, with the noted exception of Montréal, which Le Council acknowledges is becoming a pattern it does not know how to categorize. The record has been updated. Game 2 will occur as scheduled.