Can the Ottawa Charge ride the 'Michela Cava Factor' to win a PWHL championship?

1 week ago 17

Michela Cava from the Ottawa Charge celebrates her double-overtime winning goal against the Boston Fleet at the Canadian Tire Centre on Sunday

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Michela Cava entered this season with perhaps one of the most impressive resumés in the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

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She captured back to-back Walter Cup championships with the Minnesota Frost. Before that, she earned playoff MVP honours as she led the Toronto Six to an Isobel Cup in the now-defunct Premier Hockey Federation. Prior to her North-American success, Cava also won championships overseas with Luleå HF in Sweden and with KRS Vanke Rays in Russia.

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If Cava is on your team, chances are high that the “Cava Factor” will kick in and a championship title will follow.

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Charge general manager Mike Hirshfeld was very aware of the resumé the 32-year-old from Thunder Bay, Ont., had managed to build for herself. It was evident she knows what it takes to win.

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So, if the Cava Factor is indeed a real thing, Hirshfeld decided he had to get in on it. Coming off a heartbreaking loss to the Minnesota Frost in the league final last year, the Charge decided to make a move halfway through this season to inject some championship experience into the roster, hoping it would make a difference as the team made another postseason push.

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The massive, six-player trade with the Vancouver Goldeneyes on Jan. 18 brought Cava, Brooke McQuigge and Emma Greco to Ottawa — all of whom had previously won a Walter Cup after spending time on the Minnesota roster.

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The Charge gained some blue-line depth in Greco and a promising young forward in McQuigge, but Cava, her back-to-back Walter Cups and her 13 points in 18 career postseason games with the Frost, sat dead centre in this deal.

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Looking back on the trade nearly four months later, with his team now just three wins away from a Walter Cup championship, Hirshfeld said he’s content with the results the deal wielded.

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“When you add players like that who have that experience, who can help you in your clubhouse, help your younger players, that’s really valuable,” Hirshfeld told reporters Tuesday. “We valued that when we made that trade, and that was part of the reason we did it.”

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It took a while for Cava to settle into the Charge locker room as she collected just five assists in her first 20 games following the trade as she struggled to find the back of the net.

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But her first goal in a Charge uniform couldn’t have come at a bigger time, as she tapped in a feed from Kateřina Mrázová in the opening minutes of double-overtime of Game 4 to send the Charge to its second-straight Walter Cup final.

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“Yeah, that was a big one,” Cava said post-game. “I just felt like I had bad puck luck, and I was so close, and feels really good just to get this one for the girls.”

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With three total points in the four-game semifinal series, it seems Cava is heating up right on schedule.

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