For both the Toronto Sceptres and Ottawa Charge, a Saturday afternoon game inside Toronto’s Coca-Cola Coliseum could make or break a season.
A three-point regulation win would give the Sceptres a cushion on the fourth and final playoff spot in the league. A regulation or overtime win from Ottawa would allow it to leapfrog Toronto into the coveted final spot.
Meanwhile, sixth-place New York looms just three points behind Toronto and two behind Ottawa.
The stakes are high in the latest edition of the Battle of Ontario, which begins at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday. You can watch it on CBC TV and CBC Gem.
“You’re going to see two teams really go at it,” Ottawa Charge interim head coach Haley Irwin said after her team’s loss to Seattle earlier this week. “I think if you look at the last two games that we’ve played, we’ve done some really great things. And so it’s just helping our group just consistently find that throughout 60 minutes.”
The Sceptres won the last matchup against Ottawa in a 2-1 victory on the road in Calgary on April 1. They’ll also play on the final day of the season on April 25.
Toronto Sceptres defender Renata Fast is expecting a close, physical game.
“They play a hard game,” Fast said in an interview with CBC Sports. “They’ve played a similar style game for three seasons now where they don’t make it easy on you. They’ll finish every hit. Every opportunity they have to give you a bump on the ice, they do.”
On the other side, the Sceptres have been a different team since the Olympic break.
A ‘back-14 team’
That change in momentum started while several of the Sceptres’ key players were away at the Games.
The team went into the Olympic break feeling down. The Sceptres had lost seven of eight games, including three straight before the break.
The group that stayed behind in Toronto made things fun, but competed hard at practice. They even came up with a motto. With 14 games to play after the Olympic break, the Sceptres decided they’d be a “back-14 team.”
When Fast and others returned from the Olympics, things felt light. It was an opportunity to flip the script from the disappointment members of the Canadian team felt at the Olympics.
“A lot of the talking was kind of done before the Olympic break of just our feelings and what we needed to do,” Fast said. “And then when we came back, it was like a blank slate; now, let’s put our words into action. The group really rallied behind that mentality.”
In the last win over Ottawa, the Sceptres shut down four Charge power-play opportunities to emerge victorious.
A big part of that was captain and key penalty killer, Blayre Turnbull. She also added assists on both goals.
Turnbull has eight points since the Olympic break, and said she’ll do whatever it takes to get her team to the playoffs.
“Very seldom do you see a player that kind of takes complete control of the game in all aspects of it,” Toronto head coach Troy Ryan said after the win over Ottawa.
“I thought our captain did that. Great on [penalty killing], great in the faceoff circle, great defensively, contributing offensively, leading on the bench. Just looked so composed and in control of the whole thing.”
Fast, who’s an alternate captain, said Turnbull has a way of knowing what the locker room needs at all times, whether it’s settling things down on the bench or connecting the coaches to the players.
“She always brings that calmness, and she’s been doing it for three seasons,” Fast said. “But I think this year she’s found the balance of worrying about the team as a whole, but also really just going for it with her own individual play. She’s being rewarded for it on the score sheet, which is really exciting to see. She’s just such an incredible leader, and I think when Blayre goes, we all go.”
Jenner, Leslie leading the Charge
In Ottawa, captain Brianne Jenner has been leading the Charge in their quest to make it back to the post-season, after falling short in the Walter Cup final against Minnesota last season.
Jenner and Rebecca Leslie have paced the Charge offence all season long, though Jenner has been held off the scoresheet in the last four games. Fanuza Kadirova and Sarah Wozniewicz, who the Charge added in last year’s entry draft, have been solid depth scoring options.
Behind them is Gwyneth Philips, the starting goaltender who has carried a heavy workload in Ottawa this season.
The Charge had a golden opportunity to pass Toronto on Wednesday, when the bottom-ranking Seattle Torrent came to town facing playoff elimination.
Things were even up until the last two minutes of the third period, when the Torrent capitalized on a power play. Seattle added an empty netter to win, 5-3, and take all three points.
Natalie Snodgrass scored the game-winning goal with 1:21 left in the third period, as the Seattle Torrent beat the Ottawa Charge 5-3.
That makes Saturday’s game against Toronto a must-win for Ottawa. A regulation loss would put Toronto in the driver’s seat, and leave a bigger hole for the Charge to try to climb.
“If we can just stick together and continue to know we love each other and we’re playing for each other, and let that just take precedent for the next four games, I have absolutely no doubt that this team will pull through,” Charge forward Gabbie Hughes said after Wednesday’s loss. “But we’ve just got to commit to doing the right things every single shift.”
Both teams know it’s the last chance for a run with the same group of players. Expansion and free agency will shuffle rosters around the league next season.
That only makes a player like Fast hungrier to go on a deep playoff run in Toronto.
“No one knows really exactly what’s happening, what the rules are going to be,” she said. “There’s so much out of our control. So [we’re] just trying to block that out, but also just knowing the urgency and the desire to do it now because nothing in the future is for certain. No one knows where they’ll be.”
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