In his 25 years as a goaltending coach, Mark Greenhalgh has worked with numerous award-winning goaltenders, including All-Americans Jessie Vetter and Alex Rigsby. It only took one appearance from a then-unknown freshman from Quebec to know that he had a special talent on his hands.
In her freshman year, Ann-Renée Desbiens was expected to back up the senior Rigsby, until a knee injury during a game against Minnesota-Duluth sent Desbiens onto the ice, and into the spotlight. With Wisconsin holding a slim 1-0 lead, Desbiens made 13 saves to preserve the shutout and the win for the Badgers.
“That’s when I realized she was capable of a lot of things at this level,” said Greenhalgh.
Just over three years have passed and Desbiens has exceeded even the most lofty expectations. Last year she set NCAA single-season records for save percentage, goals against average and shutouts before becoming the career leader in shutouts earlier this season.
Beyond her own numbers, Desbiens has come to excel at many of the aspects of the game that don’t appear on a score sheet, but put her teammates in positions to succeed.
“One of the obvious things about her is how she moves the puck, it’s a different game for a defenseman when you don’t have to come back below the blue line every time the puck does,” said senior defender Jenny Ryan. “It’s just little things like that that make our games a lot easier and that’s definitely something that stands out as one of the strengths in her game.”
Desbiens’ senior season has been interrupted by two injuries, a concussion in November and a knee injury in December, that have presented a new challenge for a player so used to being on the ice.
“When I pictured my senior year it was definitely not having injuries,” said Desbiens. “It’s not how I wanted things to go, but there are some things that are out of control.”
If injuries have been out of her control, recovering from them seemingly has not. Her knee injury, suffered Dec. 18 while playing for Team Canada, was initially expected to keep her out for four to six weeks. Yet just 27 days later Desbiens was back on the ice. She recorded a pair of shutouts against St. Cloud State and played as if she hadn’t missed a single moment, a fact that players and coaches alike attributed to her mental toughness.
“Her competitiveness was also a motivation to make her want to get back on the ice as soon as she was medically cleared,” said Greenhalgh. “She wasn’t gonna waste any time in
that healing process, she was gonna push it to the limit.”
Despite missing five games and numerous practices, Desbiens has managed to almost exactly replicate her record-setting performance from last year, and through 27 games she is on pace to eclipse her own record for goals against average.
“For her, it’s all about preparation. Unfortunately when you’re injured you have to spend a little bit more time preparing, whether it’s for practice, it takes longer to warm up and get [herself] ready, and certainly the same situation for a game,” said head coach Mark Johnson. “I think she’s done a great job and certainly one of the reasons she’s been as successful this year as she was last year.”
Barring a significant decline in her performance, Desbiens will end her time as a Badger as the NCAA career leader in shutouts, goals against average and save percentage, and with 90 career wins, she has a legitimate chance at passing her former teammate Rigsby for Wisconsin’s all-time goalie wins record of 100. But for the French-speaking girl from Quebec who considered not playing in college at all, it’s a different type of record book that she’s after.
“I think I should just go for more wins and a national championship,” said Desbiens. “I don’t have that one yet.”
