The energy was sucked out of Place Bell in Game 1 in the 2026 PWHL Walter Cup Finals after Montreal’s Laura Stacey went down as the Victoire trailed the Ottawa Charge 2-1 with 18 seconds remaining.
The moment galvanized the Victoire, and as the clock ticked down, Montreal rookie Nicole Gosling scored an equalizer with 2.1 seconds left to send the game to overtime. It not only marked the first playoff goal of Gosling’s career, but the latest playoff goal scored in a regulation. And it couldn’t have come at a better time for Montreal.
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Stacey returned to the ice to start the extra period and gave her team a jolt of energy that Montreal rode all the way to the finish line. No. 1 Victoire went on to defeat No. 4 Charge 3-2 in overtime to take a 1-0 lead in the PWHL Finals. Abby Roque scored the overtime winner after the puck ricocheted off her face and into the goal.
“We play for the people around us. We play for (Laura) Stacey,” said Roque, who finished with two goals in the dramatic comeback victory. “Shout-out to Nic (Gosling). Never say die. She went to that one and got us tied up. And honestly Maggie (Flaherty) saw me all the way in the back door. Lucky enough, it hits off my face and goes in.”
Ottawa was in charge a majority of the game (no pun intended). Ottawa forward Rebecca Leslie opened scoring in the all-Canadian final with an unassisted goal in the second period after both teams were held scoreless in the first period. Leslie attempted an initial shot on goal, cleaned up the rebound and found the back of the net at the 16:56 mark to give the Charge a 1-0 lead.
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Montreal settled in during the third period and Roque scored with 7:48 remaining in the game to tie it up, 1-1. The equalizer was assisted by Nadia Mattivi and Stacey, marking Roque’s first goal of the postseason. Then Leslie scored again with 4:04 remaining on a Poulin turnover to put Ottawa back in the driver’s seat.
It marked Leslie’s fourth multi-goal game of the season.
Montreal’s Stacey went down with 18.2 seconds remaining after being checked into the boards by Ottawa’s Gabbie Hughes. Stacey immediately grabbed at her left leg and went down on the ice in pain as teammate Marie-Philip Poulin signaled for the training staff. Stacey was eventually helped to her feet and gingerly skated off the ice with the assistance of Poulin as the crowd chanted “Stacey.”
Ottawa was seconds away from taking a 1-0 lead in their second consecutive PWHL Finals. Then the unthinkable happened and the momentum instantly switched. Montreal’s Maureen Murphy and Poulin connected with Gosling, who got the puck past Ottawa’s Gwyneth Philips to tie it up 2-2 with 2.1 seconds left.
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“When (Stacey) goes down, everybody wants to push,” Roque said. “We never thought, ‘OK, it’s over.’ We still wanted to try to push and win and thank God for Nicole, but there’s a lot of plays that went up to it… Everybody just wanted to at least give it one more shot and lucky enough it went in.”
After the third period, Leslie said the conceded goal was a “tough” turn of events, but noted Ottawa is “good at battling back… we’re just going to continue to build and go at the next one.” However, Ottawa wasn’t able to respond and fall 0-1 in the Finals after being two seconds away from stealing Game 1 on the road.
Roque, who’s already sporting a black eye, said her first-ever face goal didn’t hurt. “I was more just confused and then I saw it go on the net and I was like (celebrate)… First time for everything.”
Montreal goalkeeper Ann-Renée Desbiens saved 23 of 25 shots in the victory. Ottawa’s Philips was on the ice for the entirety of the game (62:29 minutes) and saved 23 of 26 shots on goal.
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PWHL Walter Cup Finals schedule
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Game 1: Montreal 3, Ottawa 2 (OT)
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Game 2, Saturday, May 16: Ottawa at Montreal | 2 p.m. ET
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Game 3, Monday, May 18: Montreal at Ottawa | 6 p.m. ET
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Game 4, Wednesday, May 20: Montreal at Ottawa | 7 p.m. ET (if necessary)
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Game 5: TBD (if necessary
Reach USA TODAY National Women’s Sports Reporter Cydney Henderson at [email protected] and follow her on X at @CydHenderson.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Montreal completes dramatic OT comeback vs. Ottawa in Game 1 of PWHL Finals
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