OTTAWA — The Ottawa Charge suffered a bit of a power outage Saturday.
Sidney Morin scored her second goal of the game 1:45 into overtime and the Boston Fleet edged the Charge 2-1.
The strike came off a turnover deep in Ottawa's end where Morin took a pass from Hannah Brandt and put a shot past Charge netminder Gwyneth Philips for the game winner.
“Obviously great forecheck by Shay (Maloney) and Hannah (Brandt) out there. I was hanging back to see what would happen and they made a great play down low and they got the puck back to me,” Morin said.
“Hannah found me and I was going to make sure I took a little extra ice and shot high.”
Victoria Bach scored for the Charge (4-0-2-3), who had won their previous three games in regulation.
Philips made 20 saves in the Ottawa goal, including eight in the third period when Boston had two power-play opportunities.
Aerin Frankel made 19 saves for Boston (2-2-2-4).
Each side registered just 21 shots.
“A low shooting game," Fleet coach Courtney Kessel said. "I don’t think we really tested Philips as much as we would have like to, but we’ve been on the road since Dec. 26, so I think we knew today was going to be a bit of a grind. I was proud of the players to leave it all out on the ice."
Bach opened the scoring just as a Fleet penalty came to an end, tipping Jocelyne Larocque’s point shot past Frankel at 6:48 for a 1-0 lead.
Morin got a goal back for the Fleet at 15:55 to tie the game 1-1 heading into the second period.
The teams were scoreless through the middle frame and, while both sides had opportunities, the best chance came late in the period when Ottawa's Stephanie Markowski sent Natalie Snodgrass in alone on a breakaway but Frankel made the save in the Fleet goal.
A couple of minutes later Charge, netminder Philips stopped Jamie Lee Rattray and Loren Gabel in tight to keep the game tied.
“It was a good game. There’s variables within it that we think we could be better at, shooting pucks probably being the primary,” Charge coach Carla MacLeod said.
“We need to get to 30 (shots). That’s got to be the objective every game and (we've go to) get that mentality going. But it was a great hockey game, I thought our penalty kill was incredibly strong, we had a breakaway, a backdoor opportunity and, at the end of the day, we got a point.”
The Fleet appeared to take the lead with just over a minute to play, but following a review it was determined that Hannah Bilka had kicked the puck into the Ottawa goal.
It was the second consecutive game Boston had a goal called back.
“There’s nothing you can do. The call is the call and you just have to move forward, and if you don’t you’re playing catch up the rest of the game,” Kessel said.
“There was like half a minute left in the period so it was just get back to the game plan and forget about it.”
NOTES: It's the second time this season the Fleet beat the Charge. The squad also took a 3-2 victory in Boston back on Dec. 17. … The Fleet and Charge lead the PWHL with six international players each. Saturday’s game had representatives from seven different countries (Austria, Czechia, Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, the United States and Canada). … Ottawa finished 0-for-1 on the power play while Boston was 0-for-4.
UP NEXT: The Charge will next see action on Tuesday when they host the Toronto Sceptres before hitting the road for games in Montreal and Minnesota. The Fleet are off until Jan. 22 when they host the Sceptres.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 11, 2025.
Darren Desaulniers, The Canadian Press
