3-2: Final (OTT). 2.03-2.96: xG (OTT-MTL). 3-9: HD (OTT-MTL). +0.96: Philips GSAx Montreal won every territorial number that mattered and lost the game. The Victoire finished at 57 percent Corsi , outshot Ottawa 33 to 27 , and outchanced them 2.96 xG to 2.03 with a 9-to-3 edge in high-danger shots. Gwyneth Philips stopped 31 of 33 for +0.96 GSAx , including a save on Jenn Gardiner 's 0.40 xG PP snap, and Shiann Darkangelo 's 0.03 xG wrister at P3 9:17 was the winner. The Gardiner save that defined the night Less than a minute after Ottawa took the lead 1-0, Montreal got a power play and generated the single highest-quality scoring chance of the entire game: Jenn Gardiner 's 0.40 xG snap shot at P1 11:46 . It would have tied the game inside the first 12 minutes. Philips made the save. Twenty-seven seconds later Maureen Murphy did tie it on a 0.18 PP tip, but the Gardiner stop kept the inning closer than it could have been. Gardiner had a third PP look at 7:06 of the second worth 0.18; that one also stayed out. Three Gardiner PP shots above 0.18 xG, all stopped. A 0.03 winner against the run of play Tied 2-2 entering the third, Ottawa scored at P3 9:17 on Darkangelo's 0.03 xG wrister: a shot the model says scores roughly one in thirty. The other 27 Ottawa shots produced two goals on combined xG worth 0.27. Earlier in the third Marie-Philip Poulin had a 0.23 xG backhand at 12:22 that didn't go; that's the kind of mid-quality chance that a tied playoff game often hinges on. The Darkangelo goal was already in by then. With 10:43 left after Darkangelo scored, Montreal generated a steady stream of pressure that kept producing chances without finding finishes. Philips closed the door. The special-teams ledger Ottawa's PP went 1-for-3 on six shots and 0.92 xG: Brianne Jenner 's 0.17 slap shot at P1 4:54 opened the scoring. Montreal's PP went 2-for-2 on six shots and 1.19 xG , including the 0.40 Gardiner snap, Murphy's 0.18 tying tip, and Poulin's 0.11 second-period equalizer. Both PPs converted; the difference was that one of them missed on its biggest chance and the other one didn't have a comparable one to miss. Goaltending, decomposed Gwyneth Philips faced 33 shots worth 2.96 xG and allowed two for +0.96 GSAx . Save-process well above expectation on a heavy workload. The two she gave up were both PP goals (0.18 Murphy, 0.11 Poulin); she stopped the 0.40 Gardiner PP snap, the 0.23 Poulin third-period backhand, and the 0.18 Gardiner PP tip earlier. The win condition for Ottawa was that Philips kept the biggest Montreal chances out while Darkangelo found a finish at the other end. Ann-Renée Desbiens stopped 24 of 27 live shots worth 2.03 xG, finishing at -0.97 GSAx . Save-process below expectation. None of the three goals against her was a high-danger chance: 0.17 Jenner PP slap, 0.10 Bell wrister, and the 0.03 Darkangelo winner. Three of three on shots graded under 0.18 is the kind of variance that loses playoff games. The game in cumulative xG The scoring timeline P1 4:54 · Brianne Jenner (PP) · xG 0.14 · OTT 1, MTL 0. P1 12:13 · Maureen Murphy (PP) · xG 0.19 · OTT 1, MTL 1. P2 5:07 · Ashton Bell · xG 0.09 · OTT 2, MTL 1. P2 7:12 · Marie-Philip Poulin (PP) · xG 0.10 · OTT 2, MTL 2. P3 9:17 · Shiann Darkangelo · xG 0.02 · OTT 3, MTL 2 Top scoring chances MTL P1 11:46 · Jenn Gardiner snap · xG 0.40. MTL P1 11:44 · Jenn Gardiner tip · xG 0.23. MTL P3 12:22 · Marie-Philip Poulin backhand · xG 0.22. MTL P1 12:13 · Maureen Murphy tip · xG 0.19 (goal). MTL P2 7:06 · Jenn Gardiner snap · xG 0.18. MTL P1 5:38 · Catherine Dubois wrist · xG 0.14. OTT P3 0:46 · Shiann Darkangelo wrist · xG 0.36. OTT P2 13:32 · Emily Clark wrist · xG 0.21. OTT P3 0:45 · Shiann Darkangelo tip · xG 0.20. OTT P1 4:54 · Brianne Jenner slap · xG 0.14 (goal). OTT P2 19:08 · Rebecca Leslie wrist · xG 0.11. OTT P3 15:36 · Rebecca Leslie slap · xG 0.11 What this read isn't Not a process win for Ottawa. Montreal won the territorial battle by every measure and generated the better chance profile. Ottawa won because their 0.40 chance against got stopped, the 0.23 third-period chance got stopped, and a 0.03 wrister finished.. Not a knock on Ann-Renée Desbiens as a process read. A -0.97 GSAx night on 27 shots is one game of variance. The three goals against her were all on mid-quality wristers that goalies sometimes give up.. Not a sign of broken Montreal offense. 3.11 xG and nine high-danger chances at home in a playoff opener is excellent output. The biggest chances didn't go in; that's variance, not process.. Not a model failure. A 2-2 game at this xG split allows a one-goal Ottawa win on a 0.03 wrister within the model's distribution. The probability is small, but not zero. Methodology xG model : PWHL-calibrated logistic regression on 16,709 non-EN shots. Same fit as the methodology post . Features: distance, angle, rebound (≤3 s), penalty shot, power play, overtime, scorer-tagged quality chance, seven shot-type dummies. Empty-net shots are priced outside the main model (MoneyPuck / NST convention).. GSAx : summed xG on shots faced minus goals allowed, computed per-goalie from the PBP feed. Empty-net shots and goals are excluded from both sides of the ledger. Overtime shots are included.. Numbers regenerate on every build. A PBP re-sync or xG recalibration reshapes every figure in this post on the next static export. Full play-by-play, shift overlays, and the per-player game log for this game are at /games/297 .