LAVAL, Que. – There weren’t a ton of positives for the Montreal Victoire in the final minutes of Thursday’s opening game of the PWHL Finals.
The top-ranked team trailed the Ottawa Charge 2-1, and while pressing for a tying goal with Ann-Renée Desbiens pulled for the extra attacker, Laura Stacey looked badly injured on a play along the boards.
The sight of a heart-and-soul player in agony on the ice, then being helped off it — by captain Marie-Philip Poulin, Stacey’s wife — was a shock. With 18 seconds remaining, there was the immediate question of how Montreal — which was about to be down 1-0 in the finals — could come back to win a Walter Cup with both Poulin and Stacey battling injuries.
Then things took an unexpected turn.
Poulin skated into the zone and placed a perfect puck into the middle of Gwyneth Philips’ crease that rookie defender Nicole Gosling hammered home with just 2.1 seconds left on the clock.
“It’s a group that certainly does care for each other and Pou did find another level in that moment,” said Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie. “Once the puck was pushed into the front of the net, I knew anything was possible, and honestly, I didn’t believe it. I got hit in the face with a stick, they jumped on the bench, I thought my ear was bleeding, I didn’t know what was going on.”
Nobody on the Victoire had any idea about Stacey’s status, either. Not until she jumped on the ice for a few laps at the start of overtime to a chorus of cheers.
Stacey was on the ice again, less than three minutes into overtime, hunting a puck down and helping to set up Abby Roque’s game-winner — her second of the night, which bounced in off her cage.
“When Stace goes down, everybody knew we wanted to put our best foot forward for her,” Roque said after the game. “Obviously, we wanted (to) try to score with those last couple seconds and it got it done.”
On her game-winner, Roque said she “saw the puck go right between my eyes,” and “it somehow went in.”
“It was quite the crazy last four minutes of play.”
It was the fifth straight game between Ottawa and Montreal in the playoffs that required overtime, dating back to last postseason. All four games in last year’s final between Ottawa and Minnesota also required overtime.
“Welcome to the Walter Cup Final,” said Ottawa coach Carla MacLeod. “That’s the reality. It’s hard-fought. It’s two elite teams. Nobody’s wanting to give an inch and everyone’s playing as hard as they can until every buzzer and whistle.
“There’s nowhere else on the planet we wanna be.”
The Victoire now have a 1-0 series lead in the PWHL’s first all-Canadian final. Game 2 of the best-of-five series is scheduled for Saturday afternoon (2 p.m. ET) back at Place Bell.
Ottawa’s strong start
The Charge were outshot by double digits in all four games of their semifinal series against the Boston Fleet. But they came out strong in the first period on Thursday, outshooting the Victoire 10-5 — the first time Ottawa put 10 pucks on net in a single period during this year’s playoffs.
The team did a nice job getting to the inside of the middle of the ice, with nearly all of those looks coming from between the faceoff dots. Once again, though, Desbiens was able to keep Montreal in the game, stopping all 10 shots.
A diving cross-crease save on Fanuza Kadirova, who has the co-lead in playoff scoring, was among the highlights. She also denied Ottawa captain Brianne Jenner’s breakaway chance in the latter half of the period.
It was the first time the Charge failed to score in the first period of the 2026 postseason. That’s all credit to Desbiens, who finished the game with 23 saves and a .920 save percentage.
“In big moments, she’s up to the task,” said Gosling. “She’s the best goalie in the world. I might be biased, but I’m going to say it.”
Leslie breaks through
For the second year in a row, it was Ottawa’s own Rebecca Leslie who opened the scoring in the PWHL Finals. Last year, against the Minnesota Frost, was a bit more of a pleasant surprise after a one-goal regular season campaign by Leslie, who spent two seasons between Toronto and Ottawa as a useful depth player.
A lot can change in a year, though. Leslie is now one of the breakout stars of the season, a legitimate top-line winger and Ottawa’s top goal scorer; only Minnesota’s Kelly Pannek (16) had more goals than Leslie (14) league-wide this season.
“The purpose that she brings to her practices and her training, she’s always looking for ways to get better, and I think I saw that training with her this summer,” Jenner said before the playoffs. “The way that she came into the season, the way that she was skating, the accuracy with her shot, so many pieces to her game were just so dialed in I think from the start of the season.”
A lot of that was on display on Leslie’s second-period goal.
Montreal defender Nadia Mattivi, who was signed to a 10-day contract on Thursday afternoon to make her playoff debut, failed to hold the line on a pass to the point and Leslie jumped on the loose puck and used her speed to lead a rush chance the other way for the Charge.
Leslie did well to wait out a sliding Erin Ambrose, and dragged the puck around Ambrose’s outreached stick to get an initial shot off. After Desbiens made the initial save, Leslie gathered her own rebound and scored with some chaos in the crease.
Leslie added a second goal, which looked like the game-winner, late in the third period.
Roque has her playoff moment
Initially, Montreal’s draft-day trade for Roque last year was a shocker. When the deal was announced, there were audible gasps throughout the crowd in Ottawa. But it didn’t take much thought to understand general manager Daniele Sauvageau’s vision.
Roque, 28, had built a reputation as the kind of player opponents hate to play against but would love to have on their team. She had some down years on the New York Sirens, and had yet to hit her ceiling in the PWHL. With a mix of skill and sandpaper, Roque also offered a style of hockey the Victoire had lacked in back-to-back first-round losses.
“That’s where I like to come alive,” Roque said in the offseason. “I want to compete. I show up in those moments and make it difficult on the other team.”
Finding a home on the top line with Stacey and Poulin, Roque hit career highs in goals (8) and points (22) this season and made her long-awaited postseason debut in the semifinals against Minnesota.
In the first round, Roque had three points in the first two games of the series and made her presence known in a physical — and highly penalized — series against the Frost.
On Thursday, Roque put her offensive ability on display, scoring Montreal’s first goal to tie the game late in the third period, with an incredible shot blocker side on Philips. And, of course, she was the overtime hero.
“This is the meaningful hockey that I want to play, that we all want to play,” Roque said after the game. “I’ve been so grateful to have this playoff run to be able to play in these big games. I mean they’re fun, they’re physical, they get heated. It’s the way hockey is meant to be played.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, NHL, Women's Hockey
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