When Emerance Maschmeyer skated on to the ice inside Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum last Friday, it was a return to game action that’s been nine months and a lot of rehabilitation in the making.
Last March, the goaltender, then with the Ottawa Charge, received a standing ovation from the home crowd for becoming the first PWHL goaltender to reach 1,000 saves.
Moments later, Maschmeyer had to be helped off the ice after sustaining a lower-body injury while making a save.
That injury ended what had been a spectacular season for Maschmeyer. She didn’t know it at the time, but it would also be the last game she’d play for the Ottawa Charge.
Gwyneth Philips took over the starting job in Maschmeyer’s absence and ran with it all the way to the Walter Cup final, where she was named playoff MVP, despite the Charge’s loss to the Frost.
The Ottawa Charge will welcome some former teammates, including the team’s first starting goaltender, back to TD Place for a tilt against the Vancouver expansion team.
When the expansion draft process came around, and Ottawa could only protect three players to start, the team chose Philips over Maschmeyer.
“Gwyn was playing such great hockey,” Maschmeyer told CBC Sports. “They made a great choice by protecting her.”
One door closing led to a new opportunity: the chance to grow women’s hockey in western Canada with the Vancouver Goldeneyes. Maschmeyer wanted to stay in Canada, and the goaltender from Bruderheim, Alta. was one of Vancouver GM Cara Gardner Morey’s first signings.
“She’s outstanding,” Gardner Morey said about her starting goaltender. “Great leader. She’s a mother which I think brings a lot of outside perspective, which is great for our younger players, too. But she is unbelievably athletic in the net. Extremely detailed. Her work ethic is off the charts.”
Last season, it took Maschmeyer a while to come to grips with the reality that her injury would keep her out for the rest of the season. That included world championship with Team Canada, where Maschmeyer has been a regular in net behind Ann-Renée Desbiens.
While she wasn’t able to play, Maschmeyer focused on what she could control. That was the work she needed to do to get healthy again and her leadership behind the scenes.
“I can’t necessarily lead on the ice, but I can lead by how I’m managing this injury, lead by my mindset, lead by just being a support for the girls and a cheerleader because at that point, that’s all I really had was my voice and my work ethic,” Maschmeyer said. “I had to shift my mindset and my leadership at that time.”
One thing that helped? Maschmeyer’s son, Beckham, who was seven months old when she got hurt.
Becoming a mother has changed the way Maschmeyer approaches hockey, after years of not being able to turn off her hockey brain when she got home. One silver lining to her injury was more time to watch Beckham grow.
“If that would have happened pre-Beckham, I think it would have hit me in a different way,” she said. “I think having him, just that perspective: going home, he doesn’t care how I’m doing at the rink. He just wants his mom. So being able to have kind of that balance in my life, me as a hockey player, but me me as a mother.”
In her first game with the Goldeneyes, Maschmeyer kept things steady with 24 saves in an emotional overtime win for Vancouver over the Seattle Torrent.
Her second start in Ottawa on Wednesday, Maschmeyer’s return to her former team’s home rink, was a more difficult game for Vancouver. But Maschmeyer might have been the Goldeneyes’ best player, making 30 saves in the 5-1 loss.
It’s the beginning of a big season for Maschmeyer, who has the chance to represent Canada at another Olympics in February.
Ahead of last week’s season opener, Maschmeyer said she felt back at 100 per cent, almost as if the injury hadn’t happened.
“When I think of Emerance, I think of her as one of the most calm, composed, poised goalies in the league,” Vancouver alternate captain Sarah Nurse said.
Ottawa bounces back
In Maschmeyer’s return to Ottawa, the Charge looked like a different team than the one that lost 4-0 to the New York Sirens a few days earlier.
The Charge seemed more smothering and connected. One thing that helped was captain Brianne Jenner’s switch from the wing to centre. She finished the night with four points, including two goals.
Charge captain Brianne Jenner scored the game’s opening goal, recorded two primary assists then sealed the victory with an empty netter in Ottawa’s 5-1 win over Vancouver.
It was Jenner who won a board battle that allowed her to get the puck to Anna Meixner, who put Ottawa up 4-1. Her line with Meixner and Rebecca Leslie, who also had a Jenner-assisted goal, was the best of the night.
“I’d probably be a dumb coach to move [Jenner] out of there now,” Ottawa head coach Carla MacLeod joked after the game “You’re always trying to find the right chemistry and you’re always trying to put players in positions to be successful.”
Another standout for Ottawa in that win was rookie defender Rory Guilday, who led the team in time on ice. In the third period, Guilday used her to stick to force a turnover that led to a rush the other way for Ottawa. Leslie finished it off with her first goal of the season.
After losing Ashton Bell, Aneta Tejralová and Jincy Roese from its defensive group in the off-season, Ottawa will rely heavily on Guilday to get back to the playoffs this season.
Roque fitting in on the Victoire
Lots of players changed addresses this off-season. But one of the most intriguing was Abby Roque, who went from New York to Montreal in a draft day trade.
Roque has tons of skill and is annoying to play against, but she didn’t quite live up to the expectations in New York, where she was one of the team’s first signings ahead of the PWHL’s first season.
Fast forward to Montreal, where Roque has slotted in on the left wing on a line with Marie-Philip Poulin and Laura Stacey. In her second game in maroon on Tuesday, Roque’s skill was on full display, whether it was on the power play, where her presence has made Montreal more dynamic, or at five-on-five, where Roque scored a highlight-reel, between-the-legs goal in a 4-0 win over her former team.
Over the past two regular seasons, Roque has posted the best faceoff win percentage among players who took more than 50 draws. That gives head coach Kori Cheverie another strong option for faceoffs beyond Poulin, who finished second in faceoff win percentage last season, behind Roque.
“Her goal was outstanding, just to create something with the limited space that she had, but that’s the type of player that she is,” Cheverie said. “She’s very cerebral. She’s got a very high IQ, and she’s constantly thinking about the game and strategizing. She’s the one pulling people in to talk about different ways to handle certain situations.”
She’s a big part of why the Victoire look deeper and more dangerous in the league’s third season.
Sceptres take on Fleet this weekend
The PWHL is back on CBC Sports this weekend, as the Toronto Sceptres host the Boston Fleet at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET. You can watch the game on CBC TV or on CBC Gem.
Toronto began its season last week with an overtime win over the reigning Walter Cup champions, the Minnesota Frost. It was a character win for the Sceptres, which played without its anchor and best defender, Renata Fast.
Off-season trade acquisition Ella Shelton certainly helped pick up the slack. She led the team in ice time on top of scoring her first goal as a Sceptre.
WATCH | Hockey North: Opening weekend reaction:
But the biggest X factor for Toronto this season might be Natalie Spooner. It’s only one game into the season, but she looks like herself again after having a full off-season to train for hockey.
Spooner had assists on both goals Toronto scored in the team’s 2-1 win over Minnesota.
“We’ve all seen Spooner and what she can do and how she can impact the game,” Sceptres captain Blayre Turnbull said before the season started. “I think the offensive impact she’ll add to our team is something that we really need. We’re really looking forward to her being healthy and in good shape to play hockey.”
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