1-0: Final (OTT). 1.85-1.90: xG (OTT-MTL). 5-5: HD (OTT-MTL). +1.90: Philips GSAx Game 3 was as evenly-played as a one-goal shutout can be. Shots finished 26 to 25 , xG finished 1.90 to 1.85 , high-danger chances finished 5 each , and both teams drew 3 power plays. Mannon McMahon 's 0.25 xG wrister at P3 8:42 was the only puck past either goalie, and Gwyneth Philips stopped all 26 Montreal shots she faced for the shutout. The biggest chance went in McMahon's wrister at 0.25 xG was the single highest-quality scoring chance Ottawa created. Six minutes earlier Gabbie Hughes had a 0.18 xG look on the opening shift that didn't go. The Charge's other in-tight chances were spread across the night: a Brianne Jenner 0.15 wrister in the second, a Darkangelo 0.14 in the first, several second-tier looks in the 0.09 to 0.12 range. A team converting its single best chance is the most common path to a one-goal playoff win, and that's what Ottawa got. Montreal's biggest answer didn't Montreal had its highest-xG look 3:46 after McMahon's goal : a Marie-Philip Poulin 0.25 xG shot at P3 12:28 on the Victoire's third PP of the night. It didn't go. The Stacey 0.15 PP chance earlier in the period also stayed out. Montreal's PP overall produced 0-for-3 on 3 shots and 0.47 xG ; the volume was thin but the chance quality was real. Both teams generated a 0.25 xG chance; Ottawa's went, Montreal's didn't. The one-goal margin lived in that swap. Goaltending, decomposed Gwyneth Philips faced 26 shots worth 1.90 xG for the shutout, finishing at +1.90 GSAx . That's two goals above expectation and stood out as playoff-defining performance from a 25-year-old goaltender in her first PWHL postseason. The five Montreal high-danger looks she stopped included Poulin's 0.25 PP wrister, Stacey's 0.15 PP shot, and three more chances above 0.10 xG. Fifteen of Montreal's 26 shots were graded above 0.06 xG; Philips stopped all 15. Ann-Renée Desbiens stopped 24 of 25 live shots worth 1.85 xG, finishing at +0.85 GSAx . Save-process notably above expectation. The one she gave up was McMahon's 0.25 chance; she stopped the Hughes 0.18 opener, Jenner's 0.15, and the rest of Ottawa's mid-quality looks. Desbiens was excellent and Philips was slightly better; that's the gap that produced a 1-0 final on essentially-even underlying play. The game in cumulative xG The scoring timeline P3 8:42 · Mannon McMahon · xG 0.25 · OTT 1, MTL 0 Top scoring chances MTL P3 12:28 · Marie-Philip Poulin default · xG 0.27. MTL P3 2:45 · Laura Stacey wrist · xG 0.14. MTL P3 4:04 · Catherine Dubois tip · xG 0.13. MTL P2 1:24 · Marie-Philip Poulin tip · xG 0.12. MTL P3 16:24 · Lina Ljungblom wrist · xG 0.11. MTL P1 13:01 · Laura Stacey default · xG 0.11. OTT P3 8:42 · Mannon McMahon wrist · xG 0.25 (goal). OTT P1 0:28 · Gabbie Hughes default · xG 0.19. OTT P2 8:49 · Brianne Jenner wrist · xG 0.13. OTT P1 3:38 · Shiann Darkangelo wrist · xG 0.13. OTT P3 10:36 · Stephanie Markowski wrist · xG 0.11. OTT P2 12:19 · Jocelyne Larocque default · xG 0.11 What this read isn't Not a process win for Ottawa. Every territorial number landed within a tick of even. The Charge won because their best chance went in and Montreal's didn't, plus a +1.90 GSAx night.. Not a knock on Ann-Renée Desbiens . A +0.85 GSAx night for the losing goalie is excellent play. The McMahon 0.25 chance was a credible scoring shot; she lost a 1-0 game where her own performance was above expectation.. Not a sign Montreal's offense fell apart. 1.99 xG and five high-danger chances on the road in a playoff game is honest output. The Poulin 0.25 PP look was a chance any model would price as likely to score around one in four; this one didn't.. Not a model failure. A 1-0 game at 1.90-to-1.99 xG with both goalies above expectation is well inside what the chance-quality probability distribution allows. The asymmetric save-process line on a near-zero xG split is exactly how 1-0 finals tend to land. 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/301 .