After scoring the overtime winner to give Montreal the 3-2 win over Ottawa on Tuesday night, Ann-Sophie Bettez said that she just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
The irony, of course, is that for so much of her career, she wasn’t. Despite being one of the top professional scorers in the world, Hockey Canada ignored her throughout her prime before finally giving her an opportunity at the age of 31. Throughout most of that time, she was a financial advisor, excelling at the sport despite not working on it full-time.
There’s a part of Bettez that likely never thought she would be able to play in what the PWHL became. Now 36, she is the second-oldest player in the entire PWHL, and was the oldest player to be drafted. The fact that she was the one who the puck bounced to, and who was able to turn around and fire it past former teammate Emerance Maschmeyer was almost too perfect.
“It was one of the biggest goals of my career,” said Bettez, who scored 119 goals in the CWHL and 11 in the PHF. “I’m closer to the end of my career, my last mile and I never know ‘is this my last year, will there be another one,’ but I try to take in every moment like its the last. It goes even further [than tonight]. Just the fact that there was the draft, having the opportunity to be drafted in Montreal, to live out my dream to play here it’s really the sum of all those things and to allow the team to win… it’s really cool.”
The goal was Bettez’s 131st career league goal, tying her with Caroline Ouellette for second all-time in the CWHL/PHF era. It leaves her one behind Noémie Marin, her assistant coach, who finished her career with 132.
“Ann-So, you can just trust her on the ice. She’s always a player who does things the right way,” said Montreal head coach Kori Cheverie. “I think Ann-So and I actually played against each other so she’s been playing for a while, kudos to her, I’m now coaching, but I always know I can throw her out there and she has a nose to the net as well with her speed so it worked out for us tonight.”
Tuesday’s game was historic for several reasons. It was the first game for both Montreal and Ottawa in the PWHL, it was the first all-Canadian matchup, and it was the first game with two women head coaches. It ended up having the league’s first penalty shot, overtime, and set a new record for a professional women’s hockey regular season game with 8,318 at TD Place.
After a scoreless first, Montreal had the game’s best chance for a goal. While shorthanded, Marie-Philip Poulin was tripped on a breakaway leading to a penalty shot. The attempt was stopped, and the game remained 0-0.
A few minutes later, Ottawa thought they had the first goal of the game. Mikyla Grant-Mentis drove to the net seemingly put the puck by Ann-Renée Desbiens. Except video review showed that the puck went in under the lifted side of the net, and was disallowed.
Ottawa eventually did get their first goal when Hayley Scamurra fired a rocket from the left circle on the power play that beat Desbiens with 3:36 remaining in the second period.
Montreal fought back. Only 1:21 after Scamurra’s goal, Jillian Dempsey found Claire Dalton with the puck, who then walked into the slot and fired the puck past Maschmeyer to tie the game at 1-1. It was Dalton’s first professional goal in her first professional game. She also becomes the answer to a trivia question when it comes to who scored Montreal’s first PWHL goal.
Ottawa outshot Montreal 22-13 through two periods and the only reason the game was close was because of Desbiens, who was outstanding in the win for Montreal. She ended up making 26 saves on the night. Ottawa was helped by the fact they had five power plays through the first 40 minutes. They ended the game 1/6 overall.
“I’m not as worried about the amount of shots,” Cheverie said. “I looked at the shot clock and it was at nine [shots] at one point and I was like ‘OK, well we might need a couple more here to win’ but it worked out.”
Just over five minutes into the third period, Ashton Bell’s shot was saved by Desbiens and the rebound went right to Katerina Mrázová who made no mistake to give Ottawa a 2-1 lead.
To start the third period, Cheverie put Laura Stacey on the top line with Poulin and Tereza Vanišova. The move paid off with 5:37 remaining when Stacey drove to the net and put the puck on net that ended up finding its way past Maschmeyer to once again tie the game, this time at 2-2.
“We needed a little bit of a spark and we were trying to see what could buy that spark for us,” Cheverie said. “We went with the players who seemed to have the legs and see if we could put one past Masch.”
Montreal outshot Ottawa 11-6 over the final period and overtime.
Bettez’s winner was set up by hard work from Kristin O’Neill, whose forecheck won the puck back to Montreal. O’Neill then made a beautiful backhand feed to Kati Tabin, and her shot bounced to Bettez.
Montreal will now head back to the city for a few days before going back on the road to Minnesota for their next game on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. The game will be broadcast on CBC and RDS2 in Canada. All games are also available live and on demand worldwide on the PWHL’s YouTube channel. It will be Minnesota’s home opener. Their first game will be in Boston on Wednesday night.
