Time for Ottawa Charge to thank rookie goalie Gywneth Philips for saving its PWHL season

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The Ottawa Charge owes Gwyneth Philips.

Now it’s time to deliver.

The Charge wouldn’t have made it to the PWHL playoffs — never mind the Walter Cup finals — without their 24-year-old netminder.

When star puckstopper Emerance Maschmeyer suffered a long-term injury in early March, Ottawa’s season looked to be as cooked as a good Sunday roast.

Not only did Philips rescue the Charge, but she dragged the team to places only the diehards and those inside the dressing room dreamed it could reach.

The Charge won four of its last five games to qualify for its first postseason berth in the regular season finale because Philips only gave up six goals while brushing aside 112 of the 118 shots she faced.

Ottawa upset Montreal in the first round because Philips turned away 129 of 135 shots, including a 53-save performance in the four-overtime Game 2 marathon — the team’s only loss, but also a game in which its goalie deserved a better fate.

Philips stopped 47 of 50 shots as the Charge split the first two games of the final at TD Place, and she was at her acrobatic best in making 45 of 47 shots in Saturday’s triple overtime at Xcel Energy Center.

But her teammates couldn’t provide her enough run support, which is why Ottawa now faces elimination in Monday’s Game 4 against a team that won the Walter Cup in Lowell, Mass., last year and no doubt wants to celebrate one in front of its fans.

Unless the Charge can somehow avoid its first three-game losing streak since the calendars flipped from January to February, the would-be, wonderful story of a backup becoming the playoff MVP will be spoiled.

The Charge needs to find some offence, and find it quickly.

Ideally, after its last six wins have been by one goal, Philips will be given a little bit of a cushion to work with on Monday.

Ottawa has scored as many as three times only once in its seven playoff games, but has proved in the past it can crack through the strong Frost defensive core and the team’s usually solid goaltending with an 8-3 victory at TD Place on Feb. 13.

The checking is much tighter in the playoffs, of course, but Philips won’t need eight goals to lead this series back to Ottawa for a fifth and deciding game on Wednesday, either.

Three would probably be plenty.

That likely means Tereza Vanisova will have to get off the schnide.

One of the PWHL’s top scorers with 15 during the 30-game schedule, Vanisova is in an 11-game slump.

She didn’t score on any of her nine shots in the final four games of the season, which shouldn’t have been a concern, but she is now 0-for-28 in the playoffs.

Vanisova is pushing hard, but she’s not getting the job done.

Also needing to get untracked is Shiann Darkangelo, Vanisova’s first-line centre.

Darkangelo finished the season on fire with three goals and six assists in the final eight games, and she scored in the playoff opener against the Victoire, but hasn’t had a point since.

Gabbie Hughes hasn’t scored in her last 17 games, but her value has become as a shutdown centre.

After doing a job on Marie-Philip Poulin, she has silenced Taylor Heise, who led the playoffs in scoring after Round 1 but hasn’t picked up a point and only had six shots on net in the three games against the Charge.

It’s unfair to count on any of the team’s bottom-six forwards to produce other than Ottawa’s Rebecca Leslie, a third-liner who is playing like she belongs on the first.

Katy Knoll scored the winner for Minnesota on Saturday despite being one of the team’s least-used players at just over 19 minutes of ice time, but mostly warming Ottawa’s bench in the 109:57 Game 3 were first-round pick Danielle Serdachny (13:59), the energetic Alexa Vasko (12:14) and Victoria Bach, a deadline acquisition from the Toronto Sceptres who played just 12:06.

There’s a reason coach Carla MacLeod doesn’t trust them with more work, but in the Charge’s two long overtime games to date, the team has looked like it was running out of gas, and the fact that it has largely gone with three lines is a contributing factor.

Meanwhile, in need of an easier night is Philips, whose finish to the season earned her a nomination as one of the PWHL’s three rookie of the year and three goaltender of the year finalists.

Philips’ emergence has put Charge GM Mike Hirshfeld in a precarious position of having to name her as one of the three players he will protect in the expansion draft while likely leaving the 30-year-old Maschmeyer exposed, but that is a problem for another day.

Right now, the Charge has run out of tomorrows in its quest for an unexpected championship win.

Ottawa players owe Philips a thank you for bringing them to this point, and now it’s time for them to deliver.