Our Charge vs. Victoire series picks involve backing the underdog and an MVP winner as the best-of-five showdown begins on May 14.
The PWHL final was finally set Tuesday evening as Montreal knocked off the two-time defending champion Minnesota Frost with a 2-1 win in a do-or-die Game 5.
The top-seeded Victoire made a fairly surprising decision to play the third-seeded Frost last round, the only team ever to hoist the Walter Cup, in order to avoid playing the lower-seeded Charge, after selecting to play Ottawa last postseason and losing the series in four games.
While the Victoire narrowly defeated the Frost, the decision did seem to be somewhat validated by the Charge’s performance versus a strong Boston side. Ottawa entered the playoffs in better form than Minnesota did, and was able to lean on excellent goaltending from 2025 Playoff MVP Gywneth Philips to get past the Boston Fleet in four games to earn its way into the series.
Charge vs Victoire Series Picks
Gwyneth Philips Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP Award Winner +450
The Charge were betting underdogs last round versus the Fleet and are even greater underdogs ahead of the final, as they are currently priced at +200 to win the series. While a price of +200 for the Charge to win the series does appear to be appropriate, a price of +450 for Philips to win MVP looks to hold strong value based on how likely it seems that she will win the award if Ottawa is able to grind out a series victory.
Philips has played to a league-leading .951 save percentage and 1.62 GAA this postseason. Based on the narratives surrounding Poulin and her strong production this postseason, it seems unlikely for Philips to win MVP in a losing effort once again, but is likely not an impossibility. Regardless, Ottawa likely will not carry more of the overall play in this series, and if it is able to find success in this series, her play will most likely be the key reason why.
The implied probability of Ottawa winning this series is 33.3%, while the implied probability of Philips winning MVP is 18.1%. That gap appears to be too wide, and backing Philips to win MVP looks to be a logical way to tap into the possibility of the underdog Charge winning the series, as well as the small chance Philips wins MVP playing on the losing side once again.
Philips to win playoff MVP
Charge vs. Victoire Odds
| Charge series odds | +155 |
| Victoire series odds | -200 |
| Game 1 Moneyline odds | Charge +140, Victoire -180 |
| Game 1 Spread odds | Charge (-235), Victoire (+180) |
| Game 1 Total odds | Over 4.5 goals (+110), Under 4.5 (-140) |
Odds courtesy of bet365.
Betting Ottawa Charge
The Charge finished the regular season with nine regulation wins, eight overtime wins, one overtime loss and 12 regulation losses. They held a -2 goal differential, which was by a wide margin the worst of any playoff team. They had just one more regulation win than the last-placed Seattle Torrent.
All of those numbers suggest the Charge was worthy of being the lowest-seeded playoff team and make it surprising that Montreal opted to pass on playing the Charge. That might hint that Montreal was a little afraid of the team that knocked it off last season, though Ottawa did finish the season in better form than the Frost.
Philips won her final four regular season starts while playing to a .984 save percentage. Based on Dom Luszcyszyn’s player ratings, Ottawa does not hold a top-15 skater league-wide, and looks to lean on a bend-but-don’t-break approach to try and limit opponents to reduce odd-man rushes and plays through the seams, allowing its incredible goaltender to be set and square for most shots.
The Charge have proven to be a resilient group over the past two seasons and are undoubtedly drawing some inspiration from head coach Karla MacLeod, who has coached this season while battling breast cancer.
Brianne Jenner, Jocelyn Larocque, and Emily Clark provide the team with a strong leadership group, and it certainly does not feel as though they will wilt away in the high-pressure moments of this series.
Though the Charge leaned heavily upon goaltending to get past the Fleet, beating Boston in any fashion is impressive nonetheless. Boston allowed only 1.5 goals against per game in the regular season and, under new coach Kris Sparre, was the only team to manage comparably dominant results defensively as the Victoire did.
Ottawa managed 2.5 goals per game in the series, which is an impressive output relative to expectation. Jenner led the team with 26 points in the regular season and finished fourth in PWHL scoring, while Rebecca Leslie ranked sixth with 23 points. It was Fanuza Kadirova who led the team with five points last round, though, including an assist on the series-winning goal in double overtime of Game 4.
Betting Montreal Victoire
An electric performance from Ann-Renee Desbiens, coupled with another clutch goal from Marie-Philip Poulin saved the Victoire’s front office from a lot of grief regarding the decision to take on the back-to-back Walter Cup champions, though the Victoire did beat the Frost in all four regular season meetings.
The Victoire were outshot 26-17 in Game 5, and arguably were not quite as dominant as was to be expected in what was a very tightly contested series, though the Frost seemingly did prove to have another gear after a poor finish to the season.
Poulin and Laura Stacey grade out as the top two skaters in this series, while Nicole Gosling and Erin Ambrose are rated as the top defenders from either side. Montreal is expected to carry more of the overall run of play but has struggled to create truly threatening scoring chances while bowing out in disappointing fashion over the previous two postseasons.
Following the lower-body injury she suffered at the Olympics, Poulin’s health has remained a big talking point down the stretch. She left a game on March 15th favouring her right leg and spent most of the final month of the regular season on the IR before returning for the final regular season game. She came up clutch, as she always seems to do, in a do-or-die Game 5, but did not appear to have quite the same level of jump as we have typically seen.
The Victoire will be at a rest disadvantage in this matchup, given that their last series went five games, and that Game 5 was postponed from Monday evening to Tuesday.
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