MVP: Maschmeyer's Valuable Presence

Flashback to a beautiful sunny August morning in 2023 and the Professional Women’s Hockey League has just been announced, with one of the inaugural teams to be formed in the Nation’s Capital. Of the initial three free agent signings for the club, decorated and respected Canadian national team goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer declared that she would sign in Ottawa. Fast forward to the league’s second season and she’s made the case as to why she is the 2024-25 Most Valuable Player award winner. Before explaining why, let’s take a step back for context.

The then-named PWHL Ottawa team entered the season with the trio of Emerance Maschmeyer, Sandra Abstreiter and Rachel McQuigge. Maschmeyer played in 23 of the team’s 24 regular season games and finished with a 2.30 GAA and .915 SV%, which put her ninth in the league in both categories. Backup Abstreiter only made it into one full game, posting a 3.08 GAA and a .913 SV%, while McQuigge only ended up as a backup in one game. That heavy workload appeared to impact Maschmeyer’s play down the stretch, but the team did not appear to view Abstreiter as a viable option to win games and help make the playoffs.

Cue the 2024 PWHL Draft, in which General Manager Mike Hirshfeld made one of his priorities to focus on improving the backup position to better support Maschmeyer. The team drafted Athens, Ohio native Gwyneth Philips in the third round out of Northeastern University, where she finished the season with a 1.17 GAA and a .955 SV% and her second consecutive Beanpot Championship. The team also signed Logan Angers out of Quinnipiac University as a free agent, who finished her senior year with a 1.88 GAA and a .934 SV%. Beyond the value of now having two legitimate goaltenders behind her, Maschmeyer also spent a great deal of time over the offseason working with Pierre Groulx, the team’s goaltending coach, working on refining the fundamentals. The first glimpse of her evolution was in the third game of the Rivalry Series on November 10 in Boise, Idaho. Maschmeyer was given the start and looked unbeatable, finishing the game with 36 saves on 37 shots, amounting to a .973 SV%, and foreshadowed what Ottawa Charge fans were about to witness to start the 2024-25 season.

As we look now at the present, Maschmeyer has played in nine of the team’s twelve games this season, posting a 4-4-0-1 record, along with a 2.12 GAA, and .934 SV%, good for fifth and second in the league, respectively. While those stats are indeed impressive and an improvement on last season, it’s how she’s doing it that helps to solidify her case for MVP honours. Of the nine games Maschmeyer has played, five of them have involved 30 or more shots, a record in the PWHL. No other goaltender has played in more than one game under such conditions. In total, Maschmeyer has now faced 290 shots, first in the league and a full 61 more than second place, New York’s Corinne Schroeder. She’s also made 271 total saves, 57 more than second place Schroeder, and for a team who struggles to score, currently sitting fourth in the league with 24 Goals For, and who tend to give up a high number of secondary scoring opportunities and haven’t been able to effectively exit the zone with consistency, having a goaltender like Maschmeyer can help to provide the players with the confidence to take a chance to make a play.

Emerance Maschmeyer has found a way to turn back the clock this season and is putting on a MVP-calibre performance for an Ottawa Charge team who missed the playoffs last year by one single win and whose fans are desperate to watch playoff hockey. Maintaining this level of play hasn’t appeared to have taken a toll on Maschmeyer, which means that when the final buzzer sounds on the 2024-25 season, Ottawa fans will be filled with joy when they hear that the winner of this year’s Most Valuable Player award goes to Emerance Maschmeyer.