OTTAWA — Rebecca Leslie didn’t have to think for even a nano-second about whether she’d ever scored as big of a goal as the one she’d just authored with less than a minute to go in Game 3 of the Walter Cup Finals.
“Definitely not,” Leslie said with a smile on Monday night after her Charge recorded a 2-1 come-from-behind win over the Montreal Victoire in a do-or-die game on home ice to keep their hopes of a PWHL title alive.
“Honestly at a loss for words,” said Leslie, who’s from Ottawa, and felt the Canadian Tire Centre darn near shake when she lit the lamp to help her team record their first win of this series, reducing Montreal’s lead to 2-1 in this best-of-five. “It was such a good team win and we’re still in it,” added Leslie, who now leads all players with four playoff goals. “Staying alive.”
The Charge sure are, and they stayed alive in dramatic fashion, scoring both goals with just over five minutes to go to ensure the first all-Canadian PWHL final didn’t end with a sweep.
When Game 3 was over, Ottawa goaltender Gwyneth Philips threw her hands in the air and looked up at the ceiling. She was again sensational, making 27 saves to record the win.
“Every press conference you could talk about how good Gwyn is,” Leslie said of Philips, who made one save with her blocker that wasn’t even on her hand at the time before leaping across her crease to cover the puck with her gloved hand. “She’s just been so insane for us the past two years.”
Game 3 was scoreless until nearly halfway through the third period, and Philips was only beaten thanks to a bad bounce. Victoire defender Maureen Murphy’s point shot went off the back boards and the rebound landed right on the tape of Hayley Scamurra on the door-step. Scamurra banged it home into the open left side of the net and then jumped in the air in celebration while fans — Victoire fans travel well, and they were loud — roared.
With Ann-Renée Desbiens in the Victoire net, the owner of the league-best GAA in the regular season, and for an Ottawa team that had squandered 90 seconds with a two-player advantage to open the second period, it would’ve been easy to lose hope as the clock ran down.
But with 5:30 to go, Charge rookie Peyton Hemp got her first of the post-season to tie things up, jumping on a rebound and making no mistake, labelling it for the top-corner over Desbiens’s glove.
“You watch her and she’s just relentless on the ice,” Charge head coach, Carla MacLeod, said of Hemp. “Obviously a tremendous skater, and she’s doing a lot of little things sometimes you don’t see on the scoresheet,” though on Monday you sure did.
Leslie’s winner came with just 56 seconds remaining, as she jumped on a rebound in a crowded net-front and then fired her hands in the air while a record crowd for a PWHL playoff game — 16,894 fans — erupted.
Leslie’s goal was followed by a review for a potential delay-of-game call, and it took longer than a minute for the league to make a decision. Lots of Charge players were reviewing the play on iPads on the bench trying to see what was under review, but not Leslie.
“I just kind of sat there and waited,” Leslie said of a “nerve-wracking” bunch of seconds.
The league determined a hand pass by captain Brianne Jenner wasn’t conclusive, so it was a good goal. When the referee announced the call on the ice stood, the crowd exploded again.
This series resumes Wednesday back at Canadian Tire Centre, where the Charge will try to tie things up and force a finale back in Laval. Ottawa is looking to become the first team to come back in the Walter Cup Finals after trailing the series 2-0.
“We knew that they were going to be a desperate team,” said Victoire head coach, Kori Cheverie. “We just needed to manage the last 10 minutes better.”
The coach said their game plan hasn’t changed. “I’m confident with this group and what we’ve done all year and throughout the playoffs that we’ll go into Wednesday and be as confident as we’ve been, be as resilient as we have been,” Cheverie added. “No team is going to just hand you the win in their building — we knew it was going to be hard.”
Hemp smiled recalling the energy in the Charge dressing room after the win, which was in stark contrast to Games 1 and 2, which Ottawa lost in overtime. “It was so nice to see all our hard work pay off,” she said.
“I’m just excited to get to continue to play more hockey,” Leslie said of the opportunity to play for her hometown, which she describes as “surreal” and “a dream come true” and “so special,” while applauding fans she calls “the best in the league.”
The Charge, who lost the Walter Cup Final last season in four games to Minnesota, now have one more home game to determine whether they can force a fifth.
“It was about getting one in a row, and the reality is we have to go get another one in a row,” MacLeod said. “We just don’t stop. We never have, we never will. It’s not who we are.”