What comes up, must come down, and sometimes, that happens in spectacular fashion. The 5,707 fans at TD Place bore witness to just that, as the New York Sirens stunned the Ottawa Charge with six unanswered goals in the third period to claim a 6-3 victory.
The game started off strong for Ottawa, who took control early. In the first period, Ottawa native Rebecca Leslie scored her first goal for the Charge, a jailbreak goal which freed Aneta Tejralová from the penalty box. Emily Clark followed up with her ninth goal of the season, giving the Charge a 2-0 lead heading into the intermission.
Captain Brianne Jenner extended Ottawa’s lead to 3-0 in the second period, scoring her fifth of the season and seemingly putting the Charge in a comfortable position to claim the three points and move ahead of Minnesota for fourth in the standings. But comfort quickly turned to disaster as the third period unraveled in shocking fashion.
New York stormed back, capitalizing on Ottawa’s dispassionate and undisciplined play. The Charge took four penalties in the final frame, leading to two power-play goals for the Sirens. The pressure mounted, and Ottawa crumbled, failing to register a single shot on goal in the period—even with a power play opportunity of their own. By the time the final buzzer sounded, New York had completely flipped the script, walking away with a 6-3 win. The fans who remained were left speechless after watching a collapse of this proportion. Final shots on goal told the story, as New York outshot Ottawa 34-18—including as many shots in the third period alone as the Charge managed throughout the entire game. In that third period, Ottawa did not register a shot on goal to New York's 18.
“Our attitude the whole time was to push back, but we didn’t find it tonight,” Jenner said following the game. “We had some missing habits earlier in the game that we let slip, and I think it caught up to us. Our details needed to be a lot better. There’s no excuse for that result.”
“We’ve got to dig. We’ve got to find another gear for ourselves. This is a great team. We see it so often. We saw it in two periods today. It’s staying the course for 60 minutes,” head coach Carla MacLeod said. “These are the moments that can easily tear you apart and the rest of the season could be challenging, but that’s not this group. We need to reset and figure out what went wrong, what makes us great, and how to stay with it for the duration of the game.”
