The Ottawa Charge have powered down for the summer.
Ottawa’s professional women’s hockey team lost the PWHL championship in heartbreaking fashion this week, as the Minnesota Frost won its third-consecutive overtime game to capture the Walter Cup in four games.
The best-of-five series could not have been much closer, as all four games required extra time, including a triple-overtime thriller in Game 3, which was won by Minnesota.
The Frost have now won back-to-back championships in the league’s first two seasons.
Meanwhile, Ottawa was making its first postseason appearance after missing the playoffs in the league’s inaugural season. Despite entering as the third-seed, the Charge matched up against the top-seeded Montreal Victoire (per league rules, the best team in the regular season gets to select its first round opponent).
After dispatching of Marie-Philip Poulin and the Victoire in four games, Ottawa advanced to the PWHL finals to face off against the defending champions. After Emily Clark’s overtime winner gave the Charge a 1-0 series lead, the offensive struggles that characterized the first half of Ottawa’s regular season returned, as the team didn’t score more than one goal in each of the final three games.
Ultimately, Minnesota forward Liz Scheppers scored the Walter Cup-winning goal in Game 4, sealing a 2-1 overtime victory for the Frost.
The Charge were not able to capitalize on the stellar goaltending provided by Gwyneth Philips, the rookie netminder who assumed the number one position halfway through the season after Emerance Maschmeyer’s injury sidelined her for the year.
Philips led all goalies with a sparkling 0.952 save percentage in the postseason. Despite the Charge losing in the finals, Philips was awarded the Ilana Kloss Trophy as the playoffs’ most valuable player.
The 25-year-old goalie from Ohio is also a finalist for the goaltender of the year and rookie of the year awards, the recipients of which will be revealed next month during a ceremony in Ottawa.
Additionally, the upcoming offseason will feature the league’s annual entry draft, which will also be held in the nation’s capital on June 24.
However, it’s a different draft that has caught the attention of all PWHL fans, as the league is set to welcome two new franchises in Vancouver and Seattle next season, meaning both organizations will participate in an expansion draft that allows them to pick players from the other six teams.
The league recently announced that teams will only be able to protect three pre-existing players on their roster, making them ineligible to be selected during the expansion draft. The rules have received criticism for being too friendly to the incoming franchises, as each team is set to lose four players, most of whom will likely be top-of-the-lineup players.
It remains to be seen who the Charge will choose to protect, as those decisions aren’t required to be made until June 3, with the expansion draft taking place on June 9.
