Goalie Gets The Nod

Maddie Rooney was on the couch recovering from norovirus at her Hugo home on Saturday afternoon. The Minnesota Frost goaltender was told to rest while the team hosted the New York Sirens for a 1 p.m. game.

But at 12:50 p.m., her head coach called her.  

“And I’m like, ‘Why am I getting a call from Ken (Klee)?’” Rooney said. “And he just said, ‘Hey, might need you to get ready and come down to the rink, but don’t leave yet. Wait until I call you back.’”

She received the follow-up call about 10 minutes later, got in her car and “rushed down” to Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, about a 25-minute drive from her house. She didn’t know the details of why she was being summoned at the last minute to fulfill the role as backup goaltender until she turned down the music on her drive to take another call and learned that presumed starter Nicole Hensley suffered a lower-body injury during warmups.

Backup Lucy Morgan was going to be thrust into her PWHL debut.

Morgan, a 23-year-old who played four years at St. Lawrence University before spending her graduate season in 2023-24 with the Gophers (15-3-0 with a .931 save percentage and 1.65 goals-against average), was a reserve with the Frost this season.

During Saturday’s warmups, Morgan said she wouldn’t let herself believe that Hensley was hurt.

“I’m a big believer in karma,” Morgan said. “So, I’m like, ‘OK, she’s just fixing her skates.’”

Even in the locker room with about five minutes until the teams took the ice for pregame introductions, Morgan talked with captain Kendall Coyne Schofield, still unsure what was happening. The captain went to the trainer’s room to check on Hensley, then returned to the locker room, where pregame music blared.

Coyne Schofield gave a nod in Morgan’s direction.

“A head nod from Kendall, basically, that I was playing,” Morgan said.

The puck dropped only a few minutes later, with Morgan in the crease in front of an announced crowd of 6,414 fans. She said she wasn’t nervous, just surprised.

“Going into this year, I never expected to even play. Definitely took me by surprise,” Morgan said.

She added: “Just because I was surprised doesn’t mean I wasn’t ready.”

Flipping the mindset
Morgan acknowledged how rare it is for third-string goaltenders to get playing time in the PWHL, so she wanted to make the most of her opportunity. Of course, the 5-0 loss wasn’t what she wanted. It wasn’t nerves; she just didn’t play her best, Morgan said. But Klee, Frost General Manager Melissa Caruso and Rooney all acknowledged that Morgan played well for being put in such a tough spot.

“I would say the hardest part is just being third string, you’re here to [help] get the players better,” Morgan said. “And then switching out my mindset, like ‘no, I need to get better,’ is kind of hard, I would say that biggest challenge.

“It’s a mindset switch.”

The hardest part was making that switch about two minutes before Saturday’s game, she added.

Maddie Rooney makes the save of the game in a Dec. 19 game against Ottawa, reaching her right pad out to stop a shot from Natalie Snodgrass that would have tied the game 3-3 in the third period. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Meanwhile, Rooney made it onto the Frost bench by the end of the first TV timeout, with about 10 minutes left in the first period. The 27-year-old goaltender doesn’t recall being part of a situation quite like this one, “not to this extent anyway.”

“You never know what’s going to happen,” Rooney said. “It was a wild turn of events.”

When Hensley left the ice during warmups, Klee and his coaching staff were watching on the bench.  

“All of a sudden it was like, ‘That doesn’t look good,’” Klee said. “’We better go see what’s happening.’”

Morgan, without much time to think about the start, filled in and made 29 saves in the loss. The first goal was surrendered at 1 minute, 10 seconds into the game, a bad-luck tally deflected off a Frost defender.

It turned into a rough game for the Frost all around, not only with the result but also being shorthanded with multiple players scratched due to illness, injury or suspension.

“When it rains it pours, I guess,” Klee said. “We just rolled with it.”

In case of emergency?
After being off the ice for a week, Rooney returned to practice Monday at Tria Rink. She’s feeling better and said she was about 75% healthy on Saturday. Morgan was the other primary goalie practicing with the Frost on Monday, while Hensley skated on her own a bit for part of practice; her injury status is day-to-day, according to Caruso.

When Rooney went out ill on New Year’s Eve, the Frost signed reserve Morgan to a 10-day Standard Player Agreement ahead of the Jan. 2 home game against Boston, where she backed up Hensley. On Saturday, Klee said the team decided to let Rooney stay home since they had two other goaltenders who were healthy at the time, “so that was the right call then,” Klee said.

“Then obviously we had to pull an audible and say, ‘Hey, drive here and get here when you get here,’” to Rooney, the coach added.

In the NHL, emergency backup goalies (EBUGs) must be in the building for each game. Though injuries to goaltenders during warmups aren’t a common occurrence, it begs the question: Is there an emergency goalie protocol in the PWHL?

The short answer is no, though Caruso said there are emergency provisions for a goalie injury during a game. In that case, the backup goaltender enters the game and someone else can dress as the new backup goalie.

“Other than that, there’s not really any emergency conditions to sign another goalie at the last minute, should the injury happen,” Caruso said.

Could the PWHL make changes in the future to add EBUGs? Or at least discuss it?

“It’s certainly something that’s been on my mind the last couple of days,” Caruso said. “We were really fortunate that we had signed Lucy here as a reserve.

“She had a tough job to do. She handled it really well. So, we got lucky this time. Probably not always going to be the case.”