Heading into the season, and especially the playoffs, the Montreal Victoire have been adamant that they don’t want to talk about last season. They (rightfully) say that a lot of this year’s team was not part of their disappointing 2024 playoff exit in three straight overtime losses. Eight of the 19 skaters who played in Game 1 against the Ottawa Charge on Thursday night were not with Montreal last season.
The issue with the team trying to distance itself from last year’s result is that Thursday was quite familiar. A disappointing one-goal loss. Montreal has now lost four straight games in the playoffs, and have the dubious honour of being the first team in PWHL history to lose four straight post-season contests.
In those four games, they have scored a grand total of six goals. That is not a winning recipe no matter what league you are playing in. It makes it impossible to lay all the blame at the feet of goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens, but there is one fact that needs to be stated: in the four playoff games the team has played, Desbiens has been the second-best goaltender in every one. It’s not the only, or even the biggest, reason they are looking at an 0-4 post-season record, but it’s hard to win one-goal games when your netminder isn’t the best of the two starters.
Desbiens has a reputation of playing her best in big games, and she hasn’t been bad in any of her PWHL playoff starts, but her career numbers of a 1.96 goals-against average is fifth of six goaltenders and her .922 save percentage is the lowest of any goaltender to play a PWHL playoff game. It sounds absurd — only two starters in the NHL post-season have a higher mark — but it’s the truth. Her regular season is the reason that Montreal finished first in the league. They aren’t in the position they are in without her. She has bailed them out time and time again this season, and sometimes when you’re struggling, you need your goaltender to take you out of it.
It goes the other way as well. Sometimes shooters can make the other goaltender look better because of shot selection, missing chances, or making the wrong decisions. Six goals in four games is simply not good enough.
The main difference between this year and last year is that last year, in the sweep by Boston, Montreal felt that they played their best three games of the season and lost each one. After Thursday’s loss, they knew they weren’t at their best and that there is room for improvement.
Despite the talk about their 0-4 record, they can silence that immediately. They are down 1-0 in the series. Win Game 2 on Sunday afternoon and you’re right back in the series, and you’re no longer winless in the post-season.
There are a lot of great leaders in the Montreal locker room. There are a lot of winners on the roster. Head coach Kori Cheverie said that one of the positives from Thursday’s loss is that she gets to see their reaction in Game 2.
There’s still a lot of opportunity to change the story of Montreal’s playoff run. In many ways, to Cheverie’s point, the story won’t be their Game 1 loss. The story will be how they respond to it. And that, in the words of Natasha Bedingfield, is still unwritten.
