Desbiens Has Delivered, But It's Gold Or Bust For Canada

Ann-Renee Desbiens has been solid for Team Canada at the 2024 World Championships. Can she help Canada reclaim gold? It seems like the only option.

It seems inevitable – Canada and the USA are headed for another showdown in the gold-medal game of the Women’s World Championship this weekend in Utica, NY. They enter each year as the co-favorites to win and have near-identical records in all-time wins and losses in the tournament.

One of the reasons Canada has edged ahead in the rivalry since 2021 is the steady presence of goaltender Ann-Renée Desbiens. She is proving again this year that she’s the clear #1 between the pipes with her clutch saves at key moments and ability to shut the door on opponents.

She leads all goalies with a 0.65 GAA and .974 save percentage, starting the tournament against Finland, facing 33 shots and saving all but one. Desbiens then posted a 13-save shutout against Czechia where she wasn’t really tested, except on a breakaway from former PWHL Montreal teammate, Tereza Vanišová.

The round-robin game against the USA was a 0-0 goaltending battle between Desbiens and Aerin Frankel. The matchup was an instant classic, one of the best games at the WWC between these two teams, probably because many of the players played the last few months in the PWHL and the others just finished out their seasons in the NCAA.

Desbiens and Frankel went toe-to-toe, saving every shot that came their way through three periods. Desbiens made several huge saves, keeping Canada in the game at times, and faced 30 shots against (Canada had 26). In the first period, she was especially sharp, as the U.S. came out flying and outshot the Canadians 12-6.

“She’s always stellar in net, but tonight she made some big saves for us and kept us in the game,” said Natalie Spooner afterward. “She’s a brick wall back there and we have so much confidence playing in front of her.”

In the three-on-three overtime, Desbiens faced 7 shots in OT while Canada got none on Frankel. The last shot was from Kirsten Simms in a three-on-one break with Marie-Philip Poulin playing defense on a broken play. Simms took a pass and shot along the ice, finding room through Desbiens' feet.

“That’s one of the better games I’ve seen her play and she’s played a lot of good ones,” said coach Troy Ryan. “She just looked confident. One of those games you never think anything’s going to go by her.”

Playing in the PWHL all season has been significant for goaltenders, who look game-tested and ready. Aerin Frankel (PWHL Boston) got the better of Desbiens but both goalies were named the stars of the game.

And with the two teams knowing there is probably another battle to come, no one seemed to treat the game as a definitive outcome. Any game between these rivals is a test of who is better on the day, in a period, at any given moment.

It takes a special kind of player to step up and perform when the stakes are as high as they are in a one-game, winner-take-all championship game, and it takes a very special kind of goalie to handle the pressure and remain calm when the next goal could mean the end of a tournament.

But in Desbiens, Team Canada has that type of goalie. Her calmness reminds some of legendary Québecois goaltenders Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur – she is the rock of her team and provides a steady backdrop from which they can press forward. With her as their #1 goaltender, they’ve won two of the last three world championships, and “reverse-swept” the USA in the last two Rivalry Series.

In last year’s Women’s World Championship, however, Desbiens was 9th in save percentage (.884) and fourth in GAA (1.98), showing some vulnerability for the first time, especially in the 6-3 loss in the gold-medal game versus the USA. It led to some whispers of doubt about whether Desbiens still had the game to be Canada’s top goaltender. But this year’s tournament has quieted those questions.

A goalie’s unique province is that they can only keep recovering from a goal against, make the next save, and wait while the team tries to score at the other end. It’s not a position most would choose – sometimes compared to a football quarterback, but more like a baseball pitcher, who is there to provide defense and prevent the other team from scoring.

And more than that, it isn’t as active a role — a goaltender waits for the other team to attack, for her own team to have a breakdown, before she is needed. Mental toughness is a requirement and the best are uniquely confident, slightly easygoing, driven yet patient enough to wait for the moment they are called on to shine. That mental strength is what has made goalies like Shannon Szabados and Kim St-Pierre champions. And Ann-Renée Desbiens has those same qualities.

Desbiens’ numbers in the NCAA from 2013 to 2017 were outstanding. She set a record with 21 shutouts in her junior season, breaking the NCAA single-season shutout record, and also set new NCAA single-season records for save percentage (.960) and goals-against average (0.76)

In her senior year, Desbiens set a new NCAA record with 543:53 consecutive shutout minutes and claimed the best-ever goals-against average (0.71 ). That season, she also won the Patty Kazmeier Award.

“When she put her mind to something, especially playing, she became very difficult to beat,” her coach Mark Johnson recalled.

And consider this stat: she holds the NCAA record for most career shutouts (regardless of gender or division) with 55. Since she played a total of 122 games, that means 45% of her games were shutouts.

“You look at some of the numbers and the shutouts, it’s going to be a challenge to even try to think about beating any of those records,” said Johnson.

Her teammate Natalie Spooner says,“She’s patient. She’s not going to make the first move, she’s going to out-wait the shooter.”

“It makes her really hard to score against. It gives our team a lot of confidence, playing in front of her.”