OTTAWA — After she got down on one knee and hammered the puck into the back of the net, Ottawa Charge forward Fanuza Kadirova got up, threw her arms in the air and skated into the glass as she cheered along with a sold-out crowd at TD Place.
A period and change later, all those fans were on their feet and roaring again as Kadiorva and her Charge teammates skated over to Gwyneth Philips with their arms in the air to jump on the netminder who’d served up a shutout to help extend their season.
The Ottawa Charge are headed to the PWHL playoffs, and they clinched the fourth and final berth in a do-or-die regular season finale on Saturday afternoon, a Battle of Ontario that saw Toronto eliminated from the post-season with a 3-0 loss.
“This will be one that I’ll remember for a while,” a smiling Jenner said, not long before her young twin boys, Lowell and Fritz, came in and sat on their mom’s lap, wearing matching dog ballcaps and Mom’s t-shirt jersey.
“I think just the energy in the building when we were getting close to closing it out — to get that done in front of our fans, it was really, really special,” added Jenner, who picked up a helper on the game’s second goal, and paced the Charge with 26 points this season.
Philips earned her third shutout of the season, and what a time to do it. Fans chanted “Philips! Philips! Philips!” as she skated onto the ice after being announced as the game’s first star.
“Just seeing my teammates working hard kind of pushes me to keep working hard,” the goaltender said, simply, of how it felt to come up with a performance like that when her team needed it most.
“We know regardless of what the score is, we have a chance in every single game with Gwyn back there,” Jenner said. “I think tonight, she was our best player.”
Ottawa didn’t need a regulation win to clinch playoffs, but couldn’t afford a regulation loss, which would’ve punched Toronto’s ticket to the post-season. Instead, the Sceptres miss the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
“Early on, we had a couple Grade A chances that we just couldn’t put away,” said Sceptres head coach, Troy Ryan. “You assume that if you finish a couple of those, the game ends up differently.”
Expansion is ahead next season — the PWHL will be adding two teams, and possibly four — which means the eight existing franchises are going to change dramatically. That added to the “disappointment” and “sadness” Sceptres players were feeling following their season-ending loss, veteran forward Natalie Spooner said.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty in that, a lot of, like, you don’t really know how to feel,” Spooner added. “I guess we just have to prepare for a lot of change.”
Toronto fought in this one, but couldn’t beat Philips, who faced a flurry of early shots, and made a save on captain Blayre Turnbull on a breakaway in the opening seconds.
“I just got a little worried that that wasn’t going to be sustainable hockey,” Philips said of the game’s start. “But it didn’t happen again, and we woke up right away.”
After a back-and-forth first period, Kadirova got the Charge on the board about four minutes into the second when the 28-year-old jumped on a Michela Cava rebound.
A minute into the third, Sarah Wozniewicz extended the lead, picking up a nice dish from Jenner and making a highlight-reel deke on Sceptres goalie Raygan Kirk before roofing a backhand.
Toronto pulled Kirk with more than five minutes to go, and Charge forward Alexa Vasko potted the empty netter.
As the clock ticked down, Philips looked up at the roof just before teammates jumped on her in celebration.
On the Charge bench at the end of the game, the team got a visit from head coach, Carla MacLeod, who has missed the last handful of games while undergoing treatments for breast cancer. Players weren’t aware that MacLeod would be there.
The coach was in tears as she watched her team clinch the playoffs.
“She’s such a beacon of strength for us,” Philips said.
Charge staff aren’t sure whether MacLeod will be with them when playoffs begin, and they also don’t yet know their opponent. It’ll either be Montreal or Boston, and since the Victoire finished first in the regular season they can choose their opponent, between Ottawa and Minnesota. That's among the PWHL's unique rules.
The playoffs open April 30 in Boston and Saturday, May 2 at Place Bell. The winners of each series advance to another best-of-five for the Walter Cup.
Whoever Ottawa goes on to face, they do so on a four-game win streak and coming off a clutch performance to clinch the playoffs. That's familiar territory for a team that also clinched last season on the final day with a win over Toronto, before going on to become the first Canadian team to advance to the Walter Cup final.
Following the win Saturday, the Charge officially earn another crack at the league title after losing in four games — all in overtime — against Minnesota last year.
“Playoffs is hard — it’s another level from this,” Jenner said. “We’re looking forward to taking that experience and making the most of it.”
