Walter Cup Final Preview: Mlýnková vs. Mrázová, and a Czech Champion Guaranteed!
For the first time in PWHL history, the Walter Cup Final will be an all-Canadian matchup. Montréal Victoire, the regular-season leaders, will meet the Ottawa Charge, the league’s great postseason survivor, in a series that guarantees the Walter Cup will be lifted north of the border for the first time. It also guarantees something else: either Natálie Mlýnková or Kateřina Mrázová will become a first-time PWHL champion.
For our excited team, that is the storyline inside the storyline.
For this final these two Czech stars are helping carry their teams in very different ways. Montréal’s identity is still built around Marie-Philip Poulin, Laura Stacey, Ann-Renée Desbiens, and a deep roster that finally pushed through the postseason wall. Ottawa’s run has leaned heavily on structure, goaltending, timely scoring, and a team that has made a habit of extending its season when the margins get narrow (Mrázová last season anyone?). But for Czech fans, this final offers a compelling contrast. The rookie forward with long-term upside on one side, and the seasoned national-team veteran still finding ways to matter in the biggest games on the other!
Mlýnková enters the series as part of Montréal’s next wave of talent. The 24-year-old forward from Zlín was selected by the Victoire in the second round, No. 12 overall, after a college career split between Vermont and Minnesota. She is already a known quantity internationally, having represented Czechia at the 2022 Olympics, multiple Women’s World Championships, and as a 2024 IIHF Women’s World Championship All-Star.
Her first PWHL season has been about translation, moving from being a high-impact NCAA and international player into a deeper professional lineup with less automatic offensive runway. Montréal did not need her to be the face of the team right away, they needed her to become trustworthy, adaptable, and useful inside a roster built to win now. In the regular season, she gave the Victoire secondary scoring and youthful energy, finishing with 5 goals and 5 assists in 30 games, while fitting into a forward group with established stars and multiple high-end contributors. She was flexible across the lineup, and served many roles.
Montréal’s path to this final has not been simple. The Victoire finished first in the regular season, then chose the two-time defending champion Minnesota Frost as their semifinal opponent. It was a bold path, and for long stretches, a stressful one. Montréal lost Game 1 in overtime despite Laura Stacey scoring the first hat trick in PWHL playoff history, then responded with a triple-overtime win, eventually taking the series in five games.
For Mlýnková, the final is a chance to turn a solid rookie season into a foundation piece. No one is looking at her to dominate the series or even to make an extreme impact. Her value may come in smaller, playoff-specific ways: extending possessions, pressuring Ottawa’s defenders, winning races, supporting below the dots, and giving Montréal shifts that are meaningful and supplement the team when th stars are on the ice. On a team with Poulin, Stacey, Abby Roque, Nicole Gosling, Hayley Scamurra, and others driving much of the attention, Mlýnková’s opportunity is not to be the headline every night. It is to be the kind of player whose details help a championship roster stay complete in high stress.
Mrázová’s place in Ottawa is different.
At 33, she is not new to the stage, the Czech national program, or the pressure of meaningful games. She is one of the most experienced Czech forwards of her generation, and in Ottawa, she has become part of a team whose entire identity seems built around resilience. The Charge were finalists last season, lost the Walter Cup, and returned this year by the narrowest kind of path, qualifying for the playoffs on the final day of the regular season before upsetting Boston in the semifinals.
Mrázová’s regular season was not overwhelming on the scoresheet, but it was useful: 2 goals and 7 assists in 30 games for Ottawa. More importantly, her season has to be read in context. Last year, she scored the overtime goal that sent Ottawa to the playoffs for the first time. This year, she has again been involved in a defining postseason moment, her shot/pass was redirected by Michela Cava for the double-overtime goal that eliminated Boston and sent Ottawa back to the Walter Cup Final.
That is the Mrázová profile in many ways. She is not always the loudest player in a lineup. She is not necessarily the player casual viewers will isolate first. But she has the puck skill, patience, and game sense to appear in special moments. For Ottawa, that kind of veteran detail is valuable. The Charge have not reached back-to-back finals because they overwhelm teams with one obvious super-line. They have done it by staying in games, trusting their structure, getting elite goaltending, and finding just enough offense at the right time.
And then there is the Carla MacLeod layer.
MacLeod’s story has been part of Ottawa’s season in a way that is impossible to ignore and irresponsible to overstate. She announced her breast cancer diagnosis during the season and later stepped away from the Charge for an undetermined period while continuing treatment, before returning behind the bench during the playoffs. For us and Czech fans, the emotional complexity runs deeper. MacLeod was also the coach who helped lift Czechia into one of the most successful periods in its women’s national-team history. Now, as Ottawa chases the trophy it fell short of last year, her club team includes one of the Czech veterans who helped define that era.
But Ottawa’s run shouldn’t be reduced to sentiment. The Charge are here because they have earned it. Gwyneth Philips has been outstanding in goal, Ottawa’s penalty kill has been strong, and the group has shown an ability to absorb pressure without losing its shape. Their semifinal against Boston was not a fluke. It was another example of a team comfortable playing in uncomfortable games.
Montréal, though, enters with the stronger regular-season profile and the deeper top-end firepower. The Victoire finished first with 62 points, while Ottawa finished fourth with 44. Montréal has the league’s great gravitational force in Poulin, a major-stage goaltender in Desbiens, and the pressure of a city that expects hockey success to mean something.
Montréal is not just another market. It is one of hockey’s spiritual centers, and the Victoire reaching their first Walter Cup Final gives the city a chance to attach itself fully to a new professional women’s hockey chapter. Ottawa’s story is about unfinished business. Montréal’s is about legacy.
For ČWHR, the beauty of this final is that the Czech angle does not need to be forced. It is already there. Mlýnková and Mrázová are not the central stars of the series, but they are meaningful pieces of two teams with very different paths to the same destination. One is a young forward growing into professional hockey on a loaded Montréal team. The other is a veteran forward whose fingerprints keep showing up in Ottawa’s biggest moments.
One of them will lift the Walter Cup for the first time. And whichever way the series turns, Czech women’s hockey will have a new champion following Denisa Křížová and Klára Hymlárová.
