Fans remind Montreal Victoire 'you picked us' with Ottawa Charge poised to deliver KO blow

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The two-part question was put to the stars of the night after the Ottawa Charge had just moved to within one victory of playing for the PWHL championship.

As nice as Montreal is in the spring, how much do you not want to go there this weekend?

And how important is it not to let the Victoire bring the series back home?

“Yeah, I’ll take this one,” Gywenth Philips, who had handled everything else thrown at her that night, said with a glance at Mannon McMahon beside her in the packed TD Place interview room. “Obviously, the games have been really close and I think after the long (4OT) game the other day and a gritty game today, that little extra bump from our fans cheering for us is really critical in these games. We’re in a good position to close out, when we can, on home ice with the help of our fans.

“So we’re not looking to go back to Montreal.”

As much as the Charge likes to boast about having the best crowd support in the league, it didn’t exactly translate into results this season.

Ottawa had the league’s second-worst home record and second-best road mark.

But just as teams have to raise their level in the playoffs, so do fans.

And such was the case with the 7,282 customers witnessing the first PWHL playoff game in the nation’s capital as the Charge grabbed command of the best-of-five semifinal.

After McMahon scored the night’s only goal near the midway mark of the third period, the fans serenaded the visitors with repeated chants of “you picked us” — a reminder that, as first-place finishers, Montreal chose the third-place Charge rather than the fourth-place Minnesota Frost as its opening-round opponent.

“Is that what they were saying?” McMahon said, breaking out in laughter. “That’s awesome.”

The thing is, this series could still go either way.

The two teams are about as evenly matched as it gets.

Of their nine meetings this year, seven have been decided by one goal.

Montreal has outscored Ottawa 20-19 because during a 4-1 home ice victory on Jan. 29, captain Marie-Philip Poulin beat Philips three times.

Philips and the Charge learned from the lesson, as they’ve done a good job on The GOAT since then.

In the two regular-season games against Ottawa that followed her outburst, Poulin had no points and just three shots on goal.

When the Charge opened this series with a 3-2 victory, Poulin scored once, on the power play, despite testing Philips a total of eight times. She had another 0-for-8 shots in the Game 2 marathon and was unable to get one past the Ottawa rookie puckstopper with seven attempts Tuesday.

To save you the math, Philips has stopped 25 of 26 shots from the PWHL’s highest scorer since allowing her a hat-trick three and a half months ago.

But trends can turn.

The Victoire is 1-4 in playoff games over the past two springs and each has been decided by a single goal.

And Poulin can catch on fire. When you have a chance to put her and her team out, you better put them out.

Of course it won’t be easy.

In last May’s 3-2 Game 3 loss to Boston, Poulin had a goal and an assist on five shots.

Count on seeing her best performance of the series Friday at TD Place, when Poulin will attempt to drag it back to Place Bell for a Game 5 on Sunday.

“Every time you are in those situations, I think it’s about whoever is ready to go, not only physically, but mentally,” Poulin said of having the season on the line. “Those are the big games you want to play for. That’s why you practice. That’s why you do the extra reps. That’s why you grind all year long. That’s why you play 30 games in the season, for those moments.

“Last year, we all know we lost three in overtime and that was hard. But we move over to this year, and again, we’re in a position to make a change. It’s going to up to us to accept that challenge and go to work.”

And it’s going to be up to the Charge to rise to that moment.

That means another big game from Philips, and another, if less noticeable job well done by McMahon.

Offence from the latter is pure bonus.

Asked to recall her biggest goal before Tuesday’s opportunistic finish of a Gabbie Hughes shot, McMahon paused, giggled and gave up.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Yeah, I don’t know. This is definitely a big one, though. So happy to get that.”

McMahon, who saw 25 players drafted ahead of her before she was selected in the fifth round of last year’s draft, has grown into an important role on the Ottawa shutdown line with veterans Emily Clark and Hughes.

When Poulin is on the ice, they are, too — when it’s possible.

“It’s so fun to see her get that goal,” Charge coach Carla MacLeod said of McMahon. “She’s logged a lot of minutes, heavy minutes in this league for a young punk, but she’s doing really well on that line. She’s got strong skating ability and continues to learn every day and she’s obviously impacting games positively, not just tonight because she scored a goal, but it’s the little things she does. You watch that line, they play some of the heaviest minutes, meaning they have to defend quite a bit, but they do it with a joy. She brings a lot to that line.”

The Charge have won three of four games against the Victoire at TD Place this season and part of that is because they get the last line change at home.

If they make it four of five Friday — and if Minnesota eliminates Toronto on Wednesday evening — Ottawa would have home-ice advantage in a best-of-five final for the Walter Cup with the defending champs.

Who picked that?