Gwyneth Philips

When Emerance Maschmeyer went down with a season-ending injury on March 11, Gwyneth Philips stepped into the Ottawa Charge's crease and didn't leave for sixteen consecutive games. By the time it was over, she had become the first goaltender to receive the Ilana Kloss Playoff MVP award — and had never lost a game in regulation time during the playoffs.

Philips grew up in Athens, Ohio, the daughter of Guy Philips, who raced in the Porsche series back in Ohio. She played lacrosse, volleyball, flag football, and basketball alongside hockey growing up, a multi-sport background that carried into her professional life as a deliberate approach to staying connected to activity outside the rink. She came to hockey as a right-catching goaltender and arrived at Northeastern University in 2019, where she played through the 2023-24 season.

Her collegiate record at Northeastern stood on its own. She left the program as the NCAA record holder with a .958 career save percentage. In her final season, she set program records for wins (34), games played (38), and minutes played (2,272). She was named to the All-American First Team following both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, was a Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award Top-10 Finalist in both 2023 and 2024, and served as an alternate captain in her senior year. The Women's Hockey Coaches Association named her National Goaltender of the Year in 2023.

Philips joined the Ottawa Charge for the 2024-25 PWHL season, initially as backup to Maschmeyer. Her first career PWHL start came in Minnesota on December 19 — the fifth game of the regular season — where she allowed four goals on 43 shots in a 5-2 loss. Her first career win came on January 21, a 1-0 shutout of the Minnesota Frost in her third career start. She added a second shutout on April 2, a 4-0 win against Lowell in which she blanked fellow American goaltender Aerin Frankel. She finished her rookie regular season with an 8-5-1 record, a 2.11 GAA, and a .919 save percentage, earning a spot on the PWHL's All-Rookie Team and a finalist nod for both PWHL Rookie of the Year and Goaltender of the Year.

After Maschmeyer's March 11 injury, Philips started every game Ottawa played, compiling a 9-3-4 record across that sixteen-game stretch. In the playoffs, she posted a 4-0-4 record with a 1.23 GAA and a .952 save percentage. She made 257 saves in the 2025 playoffs — more than 100 saves ahead of second-place Maddie Rooney of the Minnesota Frost, who had 150. She also blanked Montréal in Game 3 of the opening round, stopping 26 shots in a 1-0 win that gave Ottawa a 2-1 series lead.

On the international stage, Philips represented the United States at the 2024 and 2025 IIHF Women's World Championships, earning a gold medal and a silver medal. At the 2025 World Championship gold medal game, she entered in the third period after Aerin Frankel was injured, with the game tied, and was the goaltender on the ice when the United States won in overtime. She then started two games at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina without allowing a goal, earning an Olympic gold medal with Team USA.

When that whirlwind season ended, Philips reset entirely. She bought a camper and spent roughly twenty days camping in California. On the InGoal Radio podcast episode 316 ^[1], she described the stretch as feeling less like a season than "two months of a whirlwind." She added that she loves hockey "more than anything," but that getting outside keeps her fresh and helps her game.

That approach to the offseason — and the philosophy behind it — is the subject of Colin Hodd's piece at InGoal Magazine ^[1], which draws on her podcast conversation to explore what deliberate disconnection from hockey looks like for a goaltender at her level. One detail from the piece captures it well: Philips was so thoroughly off the grid during the PWHL expansion draft — a draft that would determine whether she entered her second professional season as a starter — that she found out the results only when she hiked high enough on a mountain to catch one or two bars of cell service and received a flood of texts at once. She was one of three protected Charge players ahead of that expansion draft, and Maschmeyer ultimately moved to the new Vancouver franchise, leaving Philips as Ottawa's number-one goaltender entering year two.

Off the ice, Philips takes her French Bulldog, Paris, on most of her outdoor adventures — camping, hiking, biking, boating, and skiing among them. Her first major purchase after the 2025 Walter Cup Final was the camper, and she documented her California trip on her TikTok account. She has since added rock climbing and cycling to her off-ice routines. She wears number 33 for the Charge.

InGoal Magazine has covered Gwyneth Philips in one InGoal article.