The Ottawa Charge will advance to the PWHL Finals after a 2-1 win over the Montreal Victoire in Game 4 of the semifinals on Friday night.
Rebecca Leslie — an Ottawa-native — opened the scoring just two minutes into the game, giving the Charge an early lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Maureen Murphy made things interesting late in the third period, cutting the Ottawa lead in half with five minutes remaining. But the Charge — backed by strong goaltending from Gwyneth Philips — were able to secure the win and pull off the upset.
Montreal entered the playoffs as the No. 1 team in the league and got to choose its semifinal opponent, the third-ranked Charge. Montreal was heavily favored to win the series, according to Dom Luszczyszyn’s model, with 63 percent odds. But the Victoire mustered only one win — 3-2 in quadruple overtime — en route to another early exit from the postseason.
“We had to grind for every win. That’s a great hockey club over there that gave us a great challenge,” Ottawa captain Brianne Jenner said. “I think we’re playing our best hockey at the right time of year, so it’s exciting.”
As the top remaining seed, Ottawa will have home-ice advantage in the PWHL Finals against the Minnesota Frost. Game 1 will be Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET at TD Place Arena.
Here are some takeaways from Friday’s deciding game.
A quick opening goal
Ottawa had about as good a start as it could have hoped for, scoring just two minutes after puck drop. That it was Leslie, a local product, who started the two-on-one and buried the rebound that kicked out off Ann-Renée Desbiens’ pad was a nice touch.
The Charge are known for strong starts, with the most games scoring first (21) in the league through the regular season and into the playoffs. At times during the regular season, maintaining leads was perhaps Ottawa’s biggest issue, with a modest 10-1-3-4 record when scoring first.
But in the first round, Ottawa has been able to gain and hold a lead much more effectively, scoring first three times and winning each time, including on Friday night.
Montreal’s top line
One of the reasons to believe Montreal could get the job done against Ottawa was that it has the best forward in the world (Marie-Philip Poulin) and arguably the best top line in the PWHL (Poulin, Laura Stacey and Jennifer Gardiner).
Poulin led the league in scoring this season with 19 goals and has been named a finalist for Forward of the Year. She is sure to be a finalist for MVP when it is announced.
No duo combined for more goals than Poulin and Stacey during the regular season. Gardiner fit in on the top line perfectly, putting together an excellent rookie season bested only in points by Sarah Fillier.
But Ottawa did an excellent job shutting that line down, with its top line of Gabbie Hughes, Emily Clark and Mannon McMahon getting most of the head-to-head minutes. The trio played Poulin tough and did well to stop her from getting the puck, especially in high-danger areas of the ice, keeping Montreal’s captain off the scoresheet in games 2 and 3 and for most of Friday’s game — until Poulin’s secondary assist on Murphy’s late third-period tally.
It’s a credit to Poulin that, despite the stingy defense, she still found pockets of open space and got more shots off in the series than anybody (27), save for Stacey (28).
But she was able to beat Philips only once all series. Similarly, Stacey had only one goal.
It’s the second year in a row that Stacey and Poulin have been completely shut down in the first round of the playoffs.
Friday, Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie made some tweaks to the top line, replacing Gardiner with Lina Ljungblom, last year’s Swedish Women’s Hockey League MVP. In the second period, she moved Dara Greig to that line.
None of those moves could get Montreal’s stars going with the season on the line.
“You want to put the puck in (the net) and I think we came short,” Poulin said after the game. “I came short.”
Clark scores her first
As excellent as Clark’s line is on the defensive side of the puck, it also added a ton of value offensively over the last two games.
In Game 3, it was McMahon who scored the lone goal in a 1-0 win to give Ottawa a 2-1 series lead. Friday, the top line combined again for a massive goal just 31 seconds into the third period to give Ottawa a much more comfortable 2-0 lead.
It was Clark’s first goal of the playoffs, and the 8,011 fans at TD Place Arena erupted with “Clarky” chants for the fan-favorite player.
Throughout the semifinals, the Charge have been at their best in the third period, with five of their seven goals scored in the final frame. In Game 1, it was Shiann Darkangelo with the game winner. In Game 2, Aneta Tejralová and Jenner scored two goals in the final five minutes to force overtime — and ultimately quadruple overtime.
It’s been quite the departure from Ottawa’s issues earlier in the season (and last season) with closing out games. And it has come at the right time.
Philips wins the goalie battle
This series was far different from the Toronto Sceptres versus Minnesota semifinal, which featured 32 goals scored between the teams and a league record for goals scored in a single game.
Goaltending was at times optional. That was not the case between Ottawa and Montreal.
All four games were close, decided by one goal. Both teams combined for only 14 goals — only two more than the record-breaking 7-5 Minnesota win Sunday in an entire series. And it’s not because the games were low-event. There were more shots on goal in the Ottawa-Montreal series than in the Toronto-Minnesota series.
The low scores were largely due to excellent goaltending by Desbiens and Philips, who lead the PWHL postseason in shots against, saves, save percentage and goals-against average.
“The whole series has been a battle of the goaltenders,” said Cheverie.
Philips — the rookie goalie who has been thrust into the starter’s crease, with Emerance Maschmeyer on LTIR — has the edge in nearly every category, with a league-leading .956 save percentage and 1.14 goals against average. Desbiens finished the series with the most saves (132). In Philips’ last two games, she has made 45 saves on 46 shots for back-to-back wins to lead Ottawa to the Finals.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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