Why the Ottawa Charge have slipped to fourth place in the six-team PWHL

Article content

The Ottawa Charge are not at all worried about their lack of scoring.

“We’re staying the course,” assistant captain Jincy Roese said after Monday’s 3-0 loss to the New York Sirens and their backup goalie, Barrhaven’s Kayle Osborne, at TD Place. “It’s one game. We’re fine.”

“We’ve got prolific offence in our room,” said coach Carla MacLeod.

If they move it down the hall to the ice they might be in first place rather than fourth with the way goalie Emerance Maschmeyer is playing this season.

Osborne, the former Richmond Royal, owns the best save percentage in the PWHL at .954, but she’s only played three games and two of them were fortunate enough to be against Ottawa.

Among the starters, Maschmeyer’s .929 is second best, and she has played a league-leading 10 games.

Maschmeyer made a rare error on Monday, fumbling a backhanded floater from the right-wing boards, just 124 seconds into the game.

At that point, even though the Charge had not been blanked all season, some observers (OK, at least one of us) felt like the goal could be too big to overcome.

In 13 games this season, the Charge have scored just 24 times for an average of 1.84 goals per outing.

In the low-scoring PWHL, the three teams ahead of them in the standings — Montreal Victoire, Minnesota Frost and New York — have significantly averaged one goal more a game.

So, no, that’s not a one-off.

The Charge are the only team in the league that has yet to light the lamp four times in the same game, and they’ve managed to get three on just four occasions.

Meanwhile, a daunting challenge awaits the Charge on Wednesday, when they face the Victoire in Laval.

Tied with Minnesota atop the standings, Montreal has defeated Ottawa in all three meetings this season.

Victoire goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens, who was Canada’s No. 1 tender at the 2024 women’s world championship while Maschmeyer served as the backup, has a .928 save percentage this season.

She also boasts a 1.96 goals-against average, which suggests the Charge will need their prolific offence to step up in order to come home with a win.

WHEN PUSH TURNS TO SHOVE

Going hand-in-hand with the Charge’s scoring issues — and the six games they’ve left without a single point, which ties them with Toronto for most in the league — is the tremendous discrepancy in the number of penalties being called.

In their 13 games, the Charge have had more power plays than their opponents just once, and only once have they had the same number of man-advantage opportunities.

Overall, opponents have had 47 power plays while the Charge have had only 26.

It’s tough to score from the box, right?

On Monday, New York’s league-leading power play was 2-for-5, while Ottawa was 0-for-2.

MacLead was visibly and uncharacteristically miffed with the referees over one third-period call.

“It would be really awkward if I smiled when we got penalties,” she said when asked about her reaction before making sure she didn’t get in any trouble with the PWHL head office. “I’m never going to say anything about the officiating in this league. I think they’re they’re doing their their best, and they’re making the calls that they know to be right.

“We haven’t had a lot of penalty luck this year. I think it’s been lopsided in most of our games. But there are some things that we can control that we need to be better at. We know discipline is a key piece, and special teams in this league matter, so we’ve got to make sure that we stay out of the penalty box.”

Especially Wednesday against the Victoire, who have the league’s best home-ice power play with a 27.3 per cent success rate.

When Roese was asked about the offsetting penalties from a late-game skirmish with New York’s Jessie Eldridge, she replied: “To be honest, I was pulled down three times, and until they said, ‘You’re both going,’ that’s when I finally took a penalty. I said, ‘If I’m going to the box, it’s going to be because I have a penalty.’ ”

WHEN FUN TURNS INTO FRUSTRATION

MacLeod and Roese mockingly laughed off some of the scoring questions during Monday’s post-game availability before the always-quotable coach could no longer disguise her annoyance with the persistence of the media.

“Gang, it’s the 13th game of the season,” MacLeod said about the lack of offensive support Maschmeyer is getting. “She’s fine, she’s doing her job. The ‘D’ are working their tails off in front of her. Forwards are doing their damnedest to score.  I’m sorry that you guys are so sombre.

“We’re not asking (Maschmeyer) to be perfect. We’re going to find her offence.”

The rant heightened as MacLeod defended her team.

“Tell me how the first 13 games have felt for you,” she said to reporters. “It’s a whirlwind. We have 17 more if my math is right. I went to a States school so you could fact-check that. You have to understand this league. The volatility of the standings will always be … that’s what makes this league great. In six games, we’re gonna look here and be like, where are we now? Right?

“So, of course we’re gonna work on the variables that we feel we need to get better at, scoring being the primary one. We’ve worked on scoring the last couple of practices as well. But we’re carrying the game now. Our speed is impacting the game now. That’s more than it was happening three, four games ago. So, from the inside out, we’re seeing a lot of growth and a lot of potential. And I recognize you’re the outside in, so you’ve got to give us all these stats and analytics, but I can assure you we’re doing all right.”

Asked if the Charge are feeling any extra pressure going into Montreal, MacLeod may or may not have been kidding with the start of her response.

“No, you guys have just made everything extra pressure here tonight,” she said. “Every game in this league is the same. We’re not looking at standings. Every team is such a fierce competitor. You don’t take anyone lightly. You never look at the standings and think that where (the opponent) is sitting in the standings is any indication of anything. Every team is really good. So are we. So every game is great, and that’s what we look forward to —  another great game on the road.”