The last team in the Professional Women’s Hockey League playoffs, Minnesota had to wait until the season’s final day to see if it would make the postseason.

Minnesota then had to wait to see its opponent, as top-seed Toronto got to pick its first-round opponent.

The late-season struggles continued in the first round as Minnesota lost the first two games of the best-of-five series in Toronto.

It all made for an amazing comeback for Minnesota in the first year of the league.

PWHL Minnesota went on the road to Toronto on Friday and knocked off the top-seed 4-1 to advance to the finals against Boston, which swept Montreal in its series.

Maddie Rooney, who took over in goal mid-series for Minnesota, stopped 27 of the 28 shots she faced on Friday. Denisa Krizova opened the scoring in the second period for Minnesota, which put the game away with three goals in the third period.

Taylor Heise scored twice and Sophia Kunin added another goal for Minnesota, which will open the finals on the road in Boston on Sunday with a 4 p.m. game.

Both semifinals ended with the lower seed winning the series. Montreal entered as the second seed, while Boston was third.

Toronto had cruised through the regular season, finishing in first by six points over Montreal (47-41). Meanwhile, Minnesota had limped to the finish with five straight losses, having to wait and see if another opponent lost on the season’s final day.

Toronto continued that dominance in winning the first two games of the playoffs by a combined 6-0 score before Minnesota’s rally.

Returning home, Minnesota outscored Toronto 3-0, including a double-overtime affair in Game 4 to force the deciding fifth game on Friday.

After Krizova scored in the second with assists to Kelly Pannek and Sophie Jaques, Toronto tied the game 38 seconds later. Rebecca Leslie scored for Toronto, which was playing without Natalie Spooner, the league’s regular-season leading scorer. Spooner was injured in a collision with Minnesota’s Grace Zumwinkle during Game 3.

But as they’ve shown the ability to do, Minnesota’s players bounced back again.

Heise scored 8:30 into the third period with assists to Lee Stecklein and Kendall Coyne Schofield.

With Toronto pulling goaltender Kristen Campbell, one of the league’s stars this season, Kunin scored an empty-net goal just over 10 minutes with assists to Abby Boreen and Stecklein.

Heise finished the game with another empty-net tally with 15 seconds remaining to clinch the victory and a berth in the first-ever finals. Coyne Schofield and Jaques assisted on the final goal.

Campbell maded 27 saves on the 29 shots she faced.

Jaques and Coyne Schofield each had a pair of assists. Pannek won 11 of 18 faceoffs while Heise won 11 of 16 draws. Minnesota finished 2 of 3 on the power play with Krizova and Heise’s first goal both coming with the advantage.

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CLEVELAND — It’s the type of matchup that baseball fans live for — power versus power, an electric arm versus one of the best players of nearly the last full decade.

José Ramírez knew it when he connected with Jhoan Duran’s curveball. He dropped his bat and started pounding the “CLE,” written on his chest.

That solo home run in the eighth inning, which came right after Ryan Jeffers and Carlos Correa had caught a runner trying to steal, was the difference in the Twins’ 3-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night at Progressive Field.

It was another slow day for the Twins offense on Friday, though they did, finally, mercifully, snap their streak of 28 scoreless innings in the third with Alex Kirilloff’s solo home run.

For much of the game, Kirilloff’s hit was the only one starter Triston McKenzie yielded. He would give up one more — a Max Kepler double — in his outing, which lasted 6 2/3 innings.

Kirilloff’s third home run of the season had given the Twins a lead that they held until the sixth, a strange inning which featured a shift violation by Correa and a popup that Jeffers couldn’t locate.

That was the final inning of Simeon Woods Richardson’s start — he threw 5 1/3 frames in a bounceback performance but was tagged with a run when David Fry got ahold of an 0-2 Steven Okert pitch and took it out for a two-run homer.

The Guardians held that lead until the Twins’ offense finally showed some life in the eighth. Jose Miranda’s soft single began a rally and pinch runner Austin Martin eventually came around to score the game-tying run when pinch-hitter Kyle Farmer delivered a clutch double.

But after Duran allowed Ramírez’s 10th home run of the season, the Twins’ offense went quietly in the ninth inning.

CLEVELAND — When Byron Buxton landed on the injured list earlier this month with right knee inflammation, he had played in nearly every game to that point, appearing in 28 of the team’s 30 contests.

Most of that had come in center field.

When Buxton comes back from the injured list — he met the team in Cleveland on Friday morning after playing in two rehab games with the Triple-A Saints and is likely to be activated ahead of Saturday’s game — his usage is expected to be more or less similar to what it had been.

“That’s what I’m hopeful for,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Something similar to what we’ve been doing.”

And that’s music to Buxton’s ears.

After pulling back for the last couple weeks and allowing the knee to calm down — it’s the same knee he’s had surgery on twice — Buxton said his knee is in a better position to come back and be able to do what he wants to do.

That means playing center field on a regular basis.

“I was like, ‘I don’t want to have to do anything different than what I was doing,’” Buxton said. “I know that with what I was doing, this happened, but I went through spring training, then I went through the month I did before this happened. Just trying to figure out better ways to manage it.”

Buxton felt his knee flare up when he took off for second base three times during one at-bat in a game against the White Sox.

But he said he didn’t plan on pulling back on the bases or letting the flare-up prevent him from doing something that would help the team. Instead, he suggested he would just “pick and choose a little better.”

“It’s back to the point where I feel like I can go again. Just trial and error. We don’t know when or if that’ll happen again,” Buxton said. “It’s just one of those things where you’ve got to put it on the backburner and just keep trusting what we’re doing and just go play.”

Nelson Cruz lands new role

Former Twins designated hitter Nelson Cruz has a new title: the slugger was named a Special Advisor for Baseball Operations on Friday, a consultant role with Major League Baseball.

In his role, he will serve as a liaison on topics concerning Latin America and in particular in his native Dominican Republic.

Cruz, who played for the Twins from 2019-21, was frequently cited as a leader among his teammates and a mentor to younger players.

“I’m extremely happy to join Major League Baseball,” Cruz said in a release. “Since I signed out of the Dominican Republic as a teenager, I’ve cared deeply about the issues affecting that country and the game as a whole. I’m excited to work with the Commissioner’s Office and the opportunity to work with young players by sharing what I have learned since I signed in 1998.”

Briefly

Bailey Ober will take the mound on Saturday against the Guardians. … The Guardians debuted their City Connect uniforms on Friday night against the Twins. The Twins, one of the last teams to get the new jerseys, will debut their own City Connects on June 14.

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