Women’s hockey: PWHL suspends Frost’s Britta Curl-Salemme for Game 2

The Frost will be without a key piece in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series in Toronto after the PWHL suspended winger Britta Curl-Salemme one game for a hit she delivered in Game 1.

The PWHL Player Safety Committee handed down the suspension, the third of Curl-Salemme’s rookie season, on Friday morning.

It’s a difficult loss for Minnesota, which trails the series 1-0 after a 3-2 loss in Toronto on Wednesday. Curl-Salemme scored the Frost’s first goal in that game, but moments later was assessed a 5-minute major and game misconduct for what PWHL Player Safety characterized as “a high and forceful check” on Toronto blue liner Renata Fast.

Curl-Salemme, was skating the puck out of her own end when she raised an elbow and appeared to catch Fast in the jaw. The hit, the league said in a statement Friday, made “the head the main point of contact on a play where such contact to the head was avoidable.”

A rookie from Wisconsin, Curl-Salemme had been fined and suspended twice already this season, once for a high sticking incident on Jan. 2 against Boston and again for an illegal check to the head on Mar. 9 against Toronto.

In a Zoom interview with reporters on Thursday, Toronto coach Troy Ryan said Fast had been seen twice by the Sceptres’ medical team and was likely to play on Friday.

Minnesota coach Ken Klee said Curl-Salemme was not “a malicious person,” and, while acknowledging it cost her a game, that Wednesday’s incident was a competitive hockey play.

“For players that play hard and aggressive, sometimes it’s tough,” Klee said. “It’s happening in a split second. It’s nothing malicious for her. I mean, obviously, we know that decisions are going to be made, but for her, she’s trying to play hard, trying to do her job.”

The PWHL’s Player Safety Committee is chaired by PWHL executive vice president of hockey operations and includes PWHL special advisor Cassie Campbell-Pascall, former NHL referee Bill McCreary, longtime NHL executive Mike Murphy and Matt McMahon, a member of the NHL’s Player Safety department.