Darkangelo's winner helps Charge upset Victoire in Game 1 of PWHL semifinal

Daniel Rainbird · The Canadian Press

· Posted: May 08, 2025 10:19 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Shiann Darkangelo scored the victor astatine 9:17 of the 3rd play to assistance the Ottawa Charge past the Montreal Victoire 3-2 connected the roadworthy successful Game 1 of their best-of-five semifinal bid Thursday.

Brianne Jenner and Ashton Bell besides scored for Ottawa, portion Gwyneth Philips stopped 31 shots.

The Victoire (12-7-3-8) finished archetypal successful the PWHL regular-season standings, earning the close to prime third-place Ottawa (12-2-4-12) implicit the fourth-place Minnesota Frost arsenic their opponent.

Marie-Philip Poulin and Maureen Murphy replied for Montreal, which mislaid three-straight overtime games to Boston successful past year's opening round.

WATCH | Charge triumph bid opener vs. Victoire successful Walter Cup playoffs debut:

Ann-Renee Desbiens made 24 saves earlier 6,570 towel-waving fans astatine Place Bell.

Thursday's crippled marked the archetypal PWHL playoff crippled betwixt 2 Canadian teams.

Darkangelo took a walk from Emily Clark and bushed Desbiens with a wrist changeable from the apical close ellipse to springiness Ottawa the 3-2 lead.

The assemblage astir erupted erstwhile Poulin appeared to pounce connected a breakaway with 1:56 remaining, but the play was whistled down for offside.

The Charge made their archetypal playoff quality aft Katerina Mrazova's overtime extremity against Toronto connected the regular season's last time clinched a spot.

Jenner opened the scoring with a power-play extremity 4:54 into the crippled aft defender Kati Tabin chipped the puck implicit the solid for a delay-of-game penalty. Former Montreal guardant Tereza Vanisova recovered Jenner unsocial astatine the broadside of the net.

WATCH | Pressure is connected for Montreal Victoire arsenic Walter Cup favourites:

Three of 4 Victoire players were guardant owed to the PWHL's "No Escape" rule, which forces each defending players to enactment connected the crystal aft a punishment is taken.

Montreal equalized with a power-play extremity of its ain erstwhile Murphy deflected a walk from Tabin into the apical close country astatine 12:13 of the archetypal period.

Bell gave Ottawa a 2-1 pb by burying a provender from Danielle Serdachny into a gaping nett with Desbiens sprawled retired astatine 5:07 of the second.

But Poulin — who scored a league-leading 19 goals this play — evened the people with different power-play marker 2 minutes later, sneaking a one-timer abbreviated broadside past Philips to assistance the fans retired of their seats.

Rebecca Leslie astir helped Ottawa regain the lead, but couldn't hide her aureate accidental astatine the broadside of the nett with little than a infinitesimal remaining successful the second.

Game 2 goes Sunday day backmost successful Laval, Que., earlier the bid shifts to the nation's superior for Game 3 connected Tuesday.