OTTAWA, ON– The Ottawa Cost clinched their spot within the PWHL Finals with a 2-1 win towards the Montréal Victoire on Friday night time in entrance of a roaring crowd of 8,011 at TD Place, profitable the best-of-five semifinal collection 3-1.
Ottawa native Rebecca Leslie put the Cost on the board early, burying a rebound off a two-on-one shot from Anna Meixner simply two minutes into the sport. The rating remained 1-0 by means of the tip of the second interval, earlier than Emily Clark doubled Ottawa’s lead simply 31 seconds into the third interval.
Now needing no less than two objectives to maintain their season alive, the Victoire continued to use stress within the third interval, and Maureen Murphy finally discovered the again of the online with 5 minutes left within the recreation to chop Montréal’s deficit in half. Whereas the Victoire pushed to tie the sport with a sixth attacker on the ice, Ottawa netminder Gwyneth Philips stood tall, ending the sport with 19 saves to backstop Ottawa to their first-ever PWHL Finals berth.
Montréal goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens stopped 21 of 23 photographs in her seventh profession playoff begin.
The Cost will face off towards the Minnesota Frost within the PWHL Finals, introduced by Scotiabank, because the Frost look to defend their Walter Cup title. Sport 1 will happen on Tuesday at TD Place.
QUOTES
Ottawa Head Coach Carla MacLeod on getting the collection win: “It’s an incredible second. From my vantage and for our gamers, I feel as you watch them develop all through the season and we watched form of how we’ve approached this playoff— and it being our first playoffs— they put on their coronary heart on their sleeve, and I feel you possibly can see it. After which I stand on the ice after the sport, and I type of neglect that there’s so many followers behind our bench. And people gamers are actually fortunate as a result of it’s fairly a bonus to have the ability to see the assist on this journey that we have now, making an attempt to win a Walter Cup.”
Ahead Rebecca Leslie on the turning level of the Cost’s season: “From day one, we’ve had perception in our group. I feel that in a season, you’re going to have ups and downs. You take a look at this league, the highest two groups are out proper now. So, each recreation is necessary, and you may’t win all of them. However for us, we simply imagine, and we’ve been enjoying playoff hockey for the second half of our season. So, I suppose there wasn’t a second, however I feel that we simply knew that if we saved pushing, we could possibly be on this place.”
Montréal defender Erin Ambrose on the distinction between dropping a PWHL collection and on the worldwide scene: “I feel it’s onerous proper now within the second. After we misplaced recreation one, it was like -okay, you don’t win or lose the collection in recreation one. And clearly we had an enormous bounce again in quadruple OT, and that was huge for us. However I feel in the mean time, proper now, it nonetheless hurts simply as a lot, if no more. I’ve all the time stated that internationally is nice. It’s clearly a privilege to play there, however to be on this crew with this group, day in and time out, with this group of individuals and the exceptional those that they’re, it makes it actually disappointing that we couldn’t get the job performed–– and that’s workers included. Our workers does every little thing beneath the solar to arrange us, to get us in conditions. And I feel the toughest factor is realizing that this group won’t ever be again collectively.”
Victoire Head Coach Kori Cheverie: “Clearly we made a extremely good push until the tip there, and we simply couldn’t appear to discover a approach to get that little black rubber factor throughout the road. We simply couldn’t rating. We tried to do what was finest for the group. Kudos to Ottawa for the collection that they put ahead.”
NOTABLES
Gwyneth Philips leads all goaltenders with a 1.14 goals-against common and a .956 save share by means of the primary spherical of the PWHL Playoffs. She was additionally the one goalie to file a shutout.
Ann-Renée Desbiens completed the collection with probably the most saves (132) and was second amongst all goaltenders in goal-against-average (1.55) and save share (.943). Video games 3 and 4 marked the primary time all season that Desbiens misplaced back-to-back begins.
The Cost’s eight objectives within the collection have been scored by seven completely different gamers, with captain Brianne Jenner being the one one to search out the again of the online twice.
Ten gamers recorded a number of factors within the collection (MTL – 5, OTT – 5), with solely Jenner and Maureen Murphy (MTL) scoring a number of objectives (2). Against this, the Minnesota–Toronto collection featured 25 gamers with a number of factors (MIN – 13, TOR – 12), together with seven gamers who scored a number of objectives.
The Cost scored on their first energy play of the collection however have been held and not using a purpose on their remaining six alternatives. Montréal went 2-for-2 on the ability play in Sport 1 however did not convert on their subsequent seven possibilities throughout Video games 2 to 4. In complete, each groups mixed to kill off the ultimate 12 energy performs of the collection.
The Victoire went winless in all 11 video games this season when held scoreless by means of two durations—together with Video games 3 and 4 of this collection.
Rebecca Leslie scored her first purpose of the playoffs, matching her regular-season complete by means of 27 video games and equaling her output from 5 playoff video games final 12 months with Toronto. The purpose additionally marked her first even-strength tally of the season, having beforehand scored shorthanded on Mar. 25 towards the Sirens.
Anna Meixner recorded her first profession playoff level with an help—her second of the season and her second within the final seven video games—after going with out an help in her first 25 video games to begin the 12 months. With the help, Meixner turned the thirteenth completely different Cost participant to file some extent within the collection, in comparison with simply 10 gamers for Montréal.
Emily Clark scored her first profession playoff purpose, snapping an eight-game purpose drought relationship again to the common season. The tally stood because the game-winner—her third game-winner of the season and first since Feb. 22, additionally towards Montreal. The purpose, scored 31 seconds into the body, is the quickest purpose to begin any interval in PWHL Playoff historical past. Clark completed the collection with three factors (1G, 2A).
Gabbie Hughes recorded an help for the second straight recreation and was the one participant to file factors in each Sport 3 and Sport 4.
Murphy scored her second purpose of the collection, giving her three profession playoff objectives in seven profession video games. The Victoire ahead had three objectives in 28 regular-season video games this season and has eight objectives in 52 profession regular-season appearances.
Marie-Philip Poulin recorded her first help of the postseason, bringing her to 2 factors (1G, 1A) in 4 video games—matching her playoff complete from final 12 months in three video games. Throughout each the common season and playoffs this 12 months, the Victoire captain didn’t go greater than two consecutive video games with out recording some extent.
Jennifer Gardiner recorded her third help of the postseason, tying her for the rookie lead in postseason scoring.
Clair DeGeorge made her first look of this 12 months’s playoffs, inserted into the Victoire lineup instead of ahead Claire Dalton.
Ottawa opened the scoring in three of 4 video games this collection and remained good when scoring first, with a 3-0 playoff file in such video games. Through the common season, they scored first in 18 of 30 video games—tied with Minnesota for the league lead—however had the second lowest win share when doing so, going 10-1-3-4 (.648).
Ottawa’s purpose at 2:00 of the primary interval was the quickest of the 2025 postseason and the second-fastest in PWHL playoff historical past—trailing solely Minnesota’s purpose 59 seconds into Sport 3 of final 12 months’s Remaining. It additionally stands because the second-fastest purpose the Cost have scored this season, behind a tally 45 seconds into their April 2 matchup towards Boston.
The Victoire led the PWHL with 32 second-period objectives through the common season however managed simply two on this collection. Tonight’s purpose additionally marked Montréal’s first third-period purpose of the collection, after ending the common season with a league-low 18 objectives within the remaining body.
All 4 video games of this collection have been determined by one-goal. Montréal performed in a league-high 22 one-goal video games throughout your complete season, profitable 13. Ottawa has performed in 20 one-goal video games and has received 12 of them.
SCORESHEET RECAP
1st Interval-1, Ottawa, Leslie 1 (Meixner), 2:00. Penalties-No Penalties.
2nd Interval- No Scoring. Penalties-O’Neill Mtl (tripping), 4:05; Clark Ott (tripping), 14:34.
third Interval-2, Ottawa, Clark 1 (Hughes), 0:31. 3, Montréal, Murphy 2 (Gardiner, Poulin), 14:58. Penalties-served by Dubois Mtl (delay of recreation), 0:31.
Photographs on Purpose-Montréal 7-8-5-20. Ottawa 6-10-7-23.
Energy Play Alternatives-Montréal 0 / 1; Ottawa 0 / 2.
Goalies-Montréal, Desbiens (23 shots-21 saves). Ottawa, Philips (20 shots-19 saves).
A-8,011
THREE STARS
1. Gwyneth Philips (OTT) 19/20 SV
2. Ashton Bell (OTT)
3. Rebecca Leslie (OTT) 1G
SERIES
Ottawa wins the collection 3-1 over Montréal
UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Ottawa: Sport 1 of the PWHL Finals vs Minnesota on Tuesday, Could 20 at 7 p.m. ET (TD Place)
