The Ottawa Charge, plagued by a disastrous third period, surrendered a three-goal lead to the New York Sirens at TD Place Arena in Ottawa on March 25. The Charge fell 6-3 to the last-place Sirens, who scored six unanswered to tighten the playoff chase.
The Charge entered the game with a chance to move into the fourth and final playoff spot with any kind of win, sitting just two points behind the Minnesota Frost. However, they couldn’t capitalize, taking four penalties and failing to register a single shot in a disappointing third frame.
“A pretty good solid two periods obviously gave ourselves an opportunity to win a hockey game, an important hockey game, and to see it transpire the way that it did in the third, it’s hard to articulate,” Charge head coach Carla MacLeod said. “I don’t have the answers.”
The Sirens, who previously fell 5-2 to the Charge on March 22, remain last in the standings with 30 points. New York has fought to keep itself in the playoff conversation and are now sitting only five points behind fourth place.
“I think it shows a lot of character from our group,” Sirens forward Jade Downie-Landry said. “Most importantly, we haven’t been getting the results that we’ve necessarily hoped for, but the pride that we play with, it never disappeared.”
The first two periods looked like a completely different game for the Charge, who were sparked early by a jailbreak goal from forward Rebecca Leslie — her first with the Charge.
Leslie intercepted a blueline pass and perfectly placed a shot past Sirens goaltender and Ottawa local Kayle Osborne, giving her squad a 1-0 lead just under nine minutes into the contest.
The Charge kept the pressure on in the first, and forward Emily Clarke was rewarded with her ninth goal of the year to extend the lead to 2-0.
The Sirens created a couple dangerous chances in the second, including a close call off the post, but rookie goaltender Gwyneth Phillips wasn’t phased.
Phillips has now made four straight starts, taking the reins from starter Emerance Maschmeyer, who remains out of the lineup with a lower-body injury. Phillips stopped 28 of 33 shots in the loss.
Charge captain Brianne Jenner continued her good run of play, burying her second goal in as many games with a snipe past Osborne to extend the lead to 3-0. Notably, Ottawa had won all 11 of their previous games over the past two seasons when Jenner scored, but that streak came to an end with the loss to New York.
“I think our attitude the whole time was, ‘let’s push back,’” Jenner said. “We didn’t find it tonight. I think there were some missing habits earlier in the game that we just kind of let slip and I think it caught up to us.”
In the third period, the tides immediately turned in the Sirens’ favour thanks to defender Brooke Hobson, who put New York on the board just 90 seconds into the third period with a point shot.
A few minutes later, the Charge were booked for interference, setting up Sarah Fillier’s 12th goal of the season to cut the deficit to one.
Penalty trouble continued for the Charge with back-to-back interference calls. Just before the second penalty expired, Downie-Landry scored a redirection on the power play to tie the game with 12 minutes remaining in the third.
Downie-Landry then silenced the home crowd, scoring her second of the game to give the Sirens their first lead with eight minutes to go.
The spillage continued, with a turnover led to Fillier’s second goal of the game, while Alex Carpenter sealed the win with an empty-net goal for insurance.
“We just really played into their hand,” MacLeod said. “They’re a desperate hockey team, they played it.”
The Charge will try to capture the final playoff position in their remaining five games of the regular season. They will take on the third-place Boston Fleet on March 29 before matchups with the Montreal Victoire, Frost and Toronto Sceptres.
“We’ve got an opportunity in front of us,” MacLeod said. “We got to make sure this one settles in the right way and we learn from it.
“We got to hold ourselves to a better standard. We got to start figuring out how to play for each other and really earn these wins in these key games.”
Featured photo by PWHL.
