To be honest, Marie-Philip Poulin is clutch
She scored the golden goal in the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, then did it again in this year's World Championship when her country needed a 'W' like never before
When Marie-Philip Poulin does interviews, she says, “to be honest” a lot. Like, every other sentence. Most athletes go with the tried-and-true “obviously,” but Poulin pivots to the far less used “to be honest.”
To be honest, Marie-Philip Poulin knew the puck was in the net. Of course she did. She always does. It was a crucial moment in an enormous game and she had the puck on her stick in a scoring area, the kind of situation in which players of her unique abilities set themselves apart. If nothing else, history should have told us what only Poulin seemed to know at 7:22 of overtime of the gold medal game in the Women’s World Championship, that the little black thing had landed behind Team USA goaltender Nicole Hensley, giving Canada a 3-2 win and its first gold medal in this event since 2012.
“It was pretty exciting, to be honest,” Poulin said. “To be honest, I kind of knew a little bit it was in, but I never knew (for sure) until the buzzer happened, but it’s just a great feeling, to be honest. When that buzzer happened in the middle of the play, to be honest, we didn’t know how to react. We jumped on the ice, we jumped on each other.” (So much so that Canadian winger Blayre Turnbull injured her knee during the post-game celebration and had to accept her gold medal on a stretcher.)
Hockey Unfiltered with Ken Campbell is a reader-supported platform. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. Those who want to support my work are encouraged to take out a paid subscription.
Regardless of the level, whether it’s the NHL or the highest ranks of international play, it takes a very special player to want to be in those situations and an even more special player to be able to excel in them. And when it comes to scoring clutch goals, nobody does it better than Poulin. Nobody has ever done it better than Poulin. In the 2010 Olympic gold-medal game, Poulin scored both Canada’s goals in a 2-0 win over USA. Four years later, she scored with 54.6 seconds remaining in the gold-medal game to tie the score, then added the overtime winner in another victory over USA in one of the greatest women’s games ever played. She scored the game-winner and insurance goals for the Canadiennes de Montreal in the 2017 Clarkson Cup. And on Tuesday night, she took an on-the-tape feed from Brianne Jenner in the neutral zone and went bar-down to end a frustrating streak of futility for Canada in the event. “You see 29 open and you’ve just got to put the puck on her stick,” Jenner said, “and she does the rest.”
It was not only a brilliant goal, but it also gave Canada some well-needed positive vibes entering the centralization process leading up to the 2022 Winter Olympics. A sixth-straight World Women’s Championship without a gold medal – along with a loss in the gold-medal game at the Olympics in 2018 – would have had the potential to embed a huge amount of angst into the program. Now, with that elusive gold medal finally theirs, the Canadian women can enter centralization with a boost of confidence. And so can, Poulin, who missed all but three games of the 2019 World Championship with an injury and sat out a game in this tournament after taking a puck in the neck area.
“It could have been a very frustrating event for her,” said Canadian coach Troy Ryan. “She just finds a way to step it up in big games. When she had that puck streaking through the middle, who else do you want to have the puck on their stick than Poulin? It’s amazing how many big goals she’s scored for Canada over her career, so we’re just glad she’s on our side.”
Like many of the great players, Poulin hates talking about herself, saying, “When you surround yourself with great people, it makes you better every day.” Jenner, who was Poulin’s linemate when both players were not injured, was more than happy to step in and talk about Canada’s captain. “You can’t ask ‘Pou’ a question about herself because she hates to answer that,” Jenner said. “But I can speak about her. She’s a special player. When you have that talent, but you also have that work ethic that she has, I mean that’s why she wears the ‘C’ for us and that’s why she’s been so clutch for us. She has everything you need in a great hockey player. It was an honor to have the assignment of getting the puck on her stick and I had a lot of fun doing that.”