Sarah Nurse hat trick against N.Y. helps Toronto secure home ice to open PWHL playoffs

Sarah Nurse scored two goals in the first period and finished with her first career hat trick as visiting Toronto clinched a top-two seed and home-ice advantage in the first round of the Professional Women's Hockey League playoffs with a 6-2 victory over New York at UBS Arena on Sunday.

Toronto (11-4-0-7) ties Montreal (10-3-5-5) for first place with a match in hand heading into the final week. Toronto has home matchups with Minnesota on Wednesday and Ottawa on May 5 remaining. Montreal, which can finish no worse than second, ends its regular season at Boston on Saturday.

It took Toronto just 65 seconds to grab the lead for good.

Nurse used assists from Renata Fast and Hannah Miller on the power play to open the scoring.

Emma Maltais and Kali Flanagan had assists on Nurse's second goal, also on the power play, at the 12:54 mark. Maltais pulled into a four-way tie for the league lead with her 13th assist of the season.

Toronto turned it into a rout with two goals over a span of 91 seconds in the second period.

Alexa Vasko scored for a second time this season at 3:56 with assists from Brittany Howard and Rebecca Leslie.

Natalie Spooner followed with her league-leading 16th goal of the season, six more than the next closest player. Jocelyne Larocque notched an assist as Toronto took a 4-0 lead after two periods.

WATCH | Nurse paces Toronto attack with 3-goal performance in New York:

Nurse scored her third goal with an assist from Spooner 54 seconds into the final period for her first career hat trick. The assist gives Spooner 23 points this season, one more than Montreal's Marie-Philip Poulin in the scoring race. Nurse has 10 goals and 10 assists this season and sits in fourth place. Nurse is the first player in the