Re-signing Tereza Vanisova 'top priority' for Ottawa Charge this summer

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The Ottawa Charge will do everything it can to make sure Tereza Vanisova is back with the team next season.

“We’ve had conversations with her and her agent already,” general manager Mike Hirshfeld said Monday. “She is a top priority for us.”

As an impending free agent who was tied for second in PWHL goal scoring this season with 15, Vanisova’s services should also be in great demand.

“I don’t think about it that much right now, because we are still in the playoffs,” the 29-year-old Czech, who also led the league in penalty minutes with 38, said after Monday’s practice. “I’m kind of happy that I don’t have to go to the expansion draft, to be honest, because I can decide on my own future. So that’s kind of nice.”

But what stems from that expansion draft could be a fact, as Vanisova’s decision will not be driven solely by money.

“Obviously, you want to get a good contract,” she said. “But I just want to have fun. And I think it’s much easier to have fun with a good group of people. So I think it’s gonna depend on who’s going to go where.”

“I love this team,” she added. “I wish we could all stay. But that’s not going to happen.”

Vanisova, who became the first PWHL player to have multiple hat-tricks in a season when she recorded her second in March, hasn’t had much luck around the net of late.

She is currently on an eight-game goalless drought that includes all four games in the opening round series against  Montreal, in which she did draw special attention from the Victoire but still set up a couple of Brianne Jenner markers.

“We won the series, so I’m not mad about it,” Vanisova said of failing to put a puck past goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens. “It’s fine, it’s the playoffs. As you can see, different players are scoring goals, so that’s good. We have the depth in our team, and every line can actually score goals, which is a huge benefit for our team.”

Vanisova sees another edge the Charge has on the Minnesota Frost, its opponent in the finals.

“I think if we’re going to play physical, we have a big chance against them,” she said.

At the same time, the Frost has proven it won’t back down.

In last year’s best-of-five semifinal against the Toronto Sceptres, Minnesota lost the first two games then stormed back to win the next three.

“They don’t quit,” said defender Jocelyne Larocque, who played for the Sceptres before being acquired by the Charge at this year’s trade deadline. “To be honest, we assumed that we were going to win that series, and they obviously knew that they had a fighting chance.

“(Ottawa coach) Carla (MacLeod) asked a few of us who have playoff experience at the start of playoffs the lessons that we learned, and the first thing I said was it’s never over until it’s over. So they can carry that from last year and this year, it’ll be a great series, I know that.”

Minnesota has an edge in the experience of playing in a final, but Ken Klee, a veteran of almost 1,000 games as an NHL defenceman who now coaches the Frost, says that’s negligible since Ottawa now has a playoff experience under its belt.

In the regular season meetings between the Charge and Frost, each team won three games, and each recorded a five-goal victory against the other.

The Frost finished fourth in the standings but was tied with Ottawa at 44 points and, like the Charge, didn’t make the playoffs until the season’s final day.

“I just think there’s parity in the entire league,” said Klee. “From one to six, any team could beat every team during the year. So it wasn’t like somebody swept somebody. It’s about coming out, playing your game and playing the right way. And that’s the team that does that usually comes out on top.”

After bouncing the first-place Victoire, the Charge is brimming with confidence.

“We knocked out the two best players in the game,” said Larocque. “That’s no disrespect to (Minnesota), but Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey are the two best players right now in women’s hockey. Does (the Frost) have amazing players? Yes, but I think we knocked out the two best ones.”

The best players of the first round were identified by the league on Monday night when Charge goalie Gwyneth Philips, Frost forward Taylor Heise (who leads the PWHL playoffs in scoring with seven points) and Ottawa’s Gabbie Hughes were named the PWHL’s three stars of the week.