How the Ottawa Charge can prove it is 'coming together' in pursuit of PWHL playoff spot

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For a team coming off a pair of overtime losses and still sitting fifth in a six-team league, the Ottawa Charge sounds confident it has turned a corner.

But talk, of course, is cheap. The best chance to prove it arrives 2 p.m. on Saturday at TD Place against the PWHL-leading Montreal Victoire.

Defeating the Victoire would go a long way in convincing its faithful followers that the Charge can propel itself into a playoff spot that it still is six points (or two regulation-time wins) away from with a dozen games left on the schedule.

Montreal is the class of the league. It has accumulated 34 points with 12 wins (three in overtime) and four losses (three in regulation) through 16 games.

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The Victoire should be especially hungry to get back in stride after a 4-0 loss at home to Minnesota on Tuesday ended its six-game winning streak.

And to this point it has owned Ottawa, winning eight of nine all-time meetings and all four games the teams have played this season.

Reasons for the Charge’s optimism include, but also go beyond, the spirited comeback from a 2-0 deficit in the final 3:33 of Thursday’s showdown with the streaking Boston Fleet.

From Tereza Vanisova’s goal with three seconds left in the third, Ottawa held a distinct edge despite getting outshot 4-3 through a four-minute and 12-second overtime that ended with a breakaway goal by Boston’s Susanna Tapani.

“That’s the best overtime we’ve played as Ottawa PWHL or Ottawa Charge,” coach Carla MacLeod said, covering off the league’s two years of existence. “It was really great effort by everyone, there was a good energy on the bench for when everyone was going out and we had multiple opportunities to finish that game off.

“I think we had them hemmed in that group for a substantial amount of time, but it just goes to show in that scenario, 3-on-3, one mishandled puck and it can turn on a dime. But really proud of what we did, really proud of how we played and we dug out (of a hole). That’s a good team effort.”

But overtime remains a mountain the Charge rarely scales. Ottawa is the only team in the league without an OT win, despite having four tries to get one.

Counting last season, the Charge is 1-10 in games extending beyond 60 minutes.

Still, it sounds like the players believe the events of last week brought them closer together, starting with an extended, four-day stay in Edmonton after weather and airport closures made it impossible to return from a 3-2 overtime loss to the Toronto Sceptres in the latest of the “Takeover Tour” series.

“We grew up pretty much from that trip,” feisty Finnish defender Ronja Savolainen said. “I mean, s*** happens, there was a lot of cancelation with the flights and everything, but we were together all the time.

“I think we had a lot of fun with the group, we were still sticking together and having fun together, eating dinners together, that kind of thing. So it was a nice trip, even though we came home pretty late.”

Also bringing the team together, Savolainen said, was the first-ever PWHL fight between Vanisova and Boston’s Jill Saulnier with less than nine minutes left in Thursday’s game.

“I like fighting,” Savolainen said. “I think that was a good boost for our whole team. Every player stood up and cheered for her, so that was a good one.”

Of course, the Fleet echoed similar sentiments.

“I feel like it just fired us up a little bit,” winger Theresa Schafzahl said before referring to an early 4 Nations Face-Off meeting in which Matthew Tkachuk and Brady Tkachuk instigated two of three scraps within nine seconds of the opening puck drop. “I feel like since that USA-Canada game, we’ve been kind of talking about it, like a few girls have been saying they kind of want to go.

“It’s kind of difficult, obviously, because we wear cages, but it was still fun. So yeah, it fired us up.”

But the home team had the better scoreboard response, as Ottawa looked like it was going to suffer its second shutout of the season before the altercation.

“I just think you see the intensity of the game and that’s the fun part of this league,” MacLeod said. “Neither player backed down. They both were intense, and I suspect there’ll be a little bit of buzz around it, which is never bad for the game either.”

What the Charge needs more than anything now is W’s.

In three games since the start of its season’s second half, Ottawa has set a league record for most goals in a game with an 8-3 win over Minnesota and salvaged a point in the other two outings for moral victories, but the Charge needs to leave the building with three points more often.

“You look at the last games, overtime to overtime, and a lot of credit goes to our players and their adjustment and pushing to win the hockey game instead of just defending the hockey game,” MacLeod said. “It has allowed us to have a lot of O-zone time. So, yeah, we’re on a three-game point streak right now and obviously we want to tilt the overtime points.

“To get that extra one is an important piece for us. But not lost on us is that we’re getting better.”

Beating Montreal would prove it.