Ann-Renée Desbiens

Ann-Renée Desbiens grew up in Clermont, Québec, and built one of the most decorated goaltending careers in the history of women's hockey — in college, internationally, and now in the PWHL. The road, however, was not one she always believed she was on.

"For someone that didn't think I was ever going to be able to play professional hockey, I'm going to enjoy every single second," Desbiens told InGoal Magazine ^[1]. "It's the best job in the world, and I never thought I could have it so I was like 'I'm never going to take this for granted.'"

At the University of Wisconsin, Desbiens put together a four-year body of work that rewrote the record books. She finished her NCAA career with 99 wins, a 0.89 goals-against average, a .955 save percentage, and 56 career shutouts — an NCAA record for men's or women's hockey. In her junior season of 2015-16, she broke the NCAA single-season shutout record with 21, earning a top-three Patty Kazmaier Award finalist nod in the process. Her senior season produced 17 shutouts, 29 wins, a 0.71 GAA, and a .963 save percentage, numbers that earned her the Patty Kazmaier Award in 2017.

Internationally, Desbiens has represented Canada at two Winter Olympics (2018 and 2022) and five World Championships (2015, 2021, 2022, 2023), collecting one Olympic gold medal, one Olympic silver, three World Championship gold medals, and two World Championship silver medals. The 2022 Beijing Games produced two singular statistical milestones: she made 38 saves on 40 shots in the gold medal game against the United States, and earlier in the tournament set a Canadian Olympic record — men's or women's — with 51 saves in a single game. She made five starts at those Games in total.

From 2019 to 2023, Desbiens played in the PWHPA, winning the Secret Cup in both 2021 and 2023.

In the PWHL, Desbiens — who wears No. 35 for the Montréal Victoire — has continued to add to her professional record. Heading into the 2026 playoffs, she held PWHL records with a .955 save percentage and a 1.11 goals-against average for the season, along with 41 career wins and seven shutouts in the regular season alone. During Montreal's 2026 semifinal run against the two-time defending champion Minnesota Freeze, she posted a .940 save percentage across a series in which Montreal's three wins came by scores of 1-0, 2-1, and 2-1 ^[1].

Much of Desbiens's approach to the game has been shaped by lessons accumulated over time, including a frank reassessment of how she practiced. She told InGoal that she was not always an easy practice goalie and that the wide-open drills common in team settings once frustrated her ^[2]. "Back in the day, I was really frustrated with them, because I was like, 'What's the point? There's no pressure, it will never happen in a game,'" she said ^[2]. Her solution was to identify specific technical focal points — depth management, save selection, crease positioning — to pursue within each drill regardless of whether the outcome was game-realistic. She also worked to hold her teammates accountable in those moments, building a dialogue about what actually helps a goalie improve ^[2].

That same deliberate thinking carries into how she manages games mentally. Desbiens described to InGoal a practice of taking intentional mental breaks between stoppages rather than trying to sustain peak focus for a full three hours ^[1]. "Your nervous system takes a beat down if you're always like, go, go, go," she said ^[1]. For her, the puck drop functions as the trigger to re-engage: "If I let it in a goal, it's the next face off. When the puck is dropped, it's like 'okay, it's work time,' but then it's okay to be enjoying yourself in between" ^[1].

On handling the heightened stakes of playoff hockey, Desbiens told InGoal ahead of the 2026 postseason that the goal is not to do more, but to trust the work already done ^[3]. "I feel like now I can just be the average me every game," she said, adding that trying to exceed oneself in big moments often produces the opposite of the intended result: "You see it in some of the goals where goalies could just slide in a regular butterfly, control the rebound but they're trying to make this big split save and it squeaks through" ^[3]. Her broader advice: "Work hard in the off-season and during practice to get to a point where you can just go out there, play and have fun and know you've done the work and just be the average you" ^[3].

InGoal Magazine has covered Ann-Renée Desbiens in one podcast appearance and three InGoal articles.