With Montreal opting to face reigning champion Minnesota in round one of the Walter Cup playoffs, we could potentially reap so many funny storylines in the coming days and weeks but for today, the Ottawa Charge have a simple task ahead of them: Beat the Fleet. Ottawa has seen its share of ups and downs over the past twelve months since conceding to Minnesota in the finals, including a brutal offseason and an uninspiring start to the regular season. With those rough patches in the rear view, the Charge enter this best-of-five playing some solid hockey and probably still riding the high of eliminating Toronto in decisive fashion to end the regular season. Boston had a good season too though finishing second in the league and earning home-ice advantage. So how do these two teams stack up heading into the semi finals?
In their first meeting back in late December, Gwyneth Philips stopped 34 of 36 shots against between regulation and overtime (and six of eight attempts in the shootout). Fanuza Kadirova had a goal and an assist, Gabbie Hughes had two assists, and Brianne Jenner played the hero in the shootout to get Ottawa the win at home. Ottawa won game two on the road, again in the shootout, in January with Sanni Ahola stepping in to play the hero, stopping 31 of 32. Ottawa mustered just 18 shots in this one and went 0/5 on the powerplay so yeah, the Charge committed larceny. Jenner scored in regulation and in the shootout for the 2-1 victory.
Back in Ottawa, the Fleet got their revenge with a shootout win in February in a low event meeting (each team averaged 24 shots). Rebecca Leslie had two goals in regulation and Jenner again converted in the shootout but Aerin Frankel held the slightest edge over Philips. In their last meeting just a week ago, Ottawa once again came through on the road, this time without the need for a shootout. A regulation win would have sealed the deal for Ottawa but then we would have missed out the satisfaction of Ottawa eliminating Toronto in Toronto. Anyway, Ottawa managed just 17 shots in regulation so Philips deserves full marks with necessary shoutouts to Leslie for tying the game in the last ten minutes of regulation and (who else) Jenner for delivering the game-winner.
It goes without saying the this series will come down largely to goaltending. Philips and Frankel led the league in ice-time in the regular season with sterling 93.1 and 95.3 (!) save percentages respectively. Now it bears mentioning that Philips faced almost 200 more shots than Frankel so we need to factor team defence into our expectations for this series. Ottawa’s offence can hang with Boston (scoring just three fewer goals in the regular season) but Boston allowed 28 fewer goals in 30 games. You can do the math there. Ottawa certainly has some kind of clutchness going in their favour with a 6-0 overtime record (and a 2-1 shootout record with that lone loss against you-know-who).
Both of these teams can draw penalties and Ottawa (17.8%) can convert on the powerplay slightly more efficiently than Boston (14%). Ottawa also takes the most penalties of any team in the PWHL and their 81.8% kill rate sits almost ten percent back of the Fleet so discipline will probably emerge as a topic of discussion in this series. Ottawa has a couple of go-to goal scorers in Jenner and Leslie while Boston has more of an offence-by-committee type model going on. Boston does have an elite playmaker in Alina Müller and a couple of dangerous defenders in Megan Keller and Haley Winn to keep an eye on.
The regular season series results certainly inspire confidence for Charge fans and this team played remarkably better down the stretch while Boston kinda got to coast a bit at the end there. Either way, this series should provide a lot of entertainment value not the least because of the goaltending matchup.
Fans in Canada can watch tonight at 7PM on TSN (or online for international fans here)