Final week of the regular season starts tonight with six games remaining before PWHL Playoffs
NEW YORK AND TORONTO (April 28, 2025) – A closer look at highlights on and off the ice from around the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) heading into the final week of the regular season schedule.
PLAYOFF PICTURE
Here’s what you need to know ahead of the final six games of the regular season schedule:
• Montréal and Toronto are the only two teams to have officially clinched berths in the PWHL Playoffs.
• Boston, Ottawa, and Minnesota remain in contention for the final two playoff spots.
• The final standings won’t be confirmed until the last day of the season on Saturday, however, first place may be decided as early as Tuesday, and all four playoff teams may be determined as early as Wednesday.
• Montréal, Toronto, Boston and Ottawa are all still capable of finishing in first place and earning the opportunity to select their semi-final playoff opponent among the third and fourth place teams.
• Montréal can secure a top-two seed with at least one point in tonight’s game against Boston. Should they earn a point, Boston and Ottawa will no longer be capable of finishing in first place. The Victoire can potentially lock up first place if they earn at least one more point tonight than Toronto earns on Tuesday.
• Toronto can potentially have a top-two seed confirmed on Wednesday if they lead Boston by three points and Ottawa by four points in the standings following outcomes over the next two days.
• Boston can clinch a playoff berth with a win of any kind tonight against Montréal, or if Ottawa beats Minnesota on Wednesday, before facing Minnesota on Saturday.
• Ottawa can clinch a playoff berth with a single point on Wednesday against Minnesota, before facing Toronto on Saturday.
• Minnesota’s path to the playoffs requires wins against both Ottawa on Wednesday and Boston on Saturday, with at least one earned in regulation, in addition to needing Boston to lose to Montréal tonight and/or Ottawa to lose to Toronto on Saturday. Should either of the teams have equal points in the standings at the end of the season, the Frost would hold only a tiebreaker advantage over the Fleet.
• New York was officially eliminated following Saturday’s results and secured the top pick in the order of selection for the 2025 PWHL Draft, among non-playoff teams, by virtue of their regulation win on Sunday over Minnesota which gave them three ‘Draft Order Points’.
Click here for full PWHL standings and here for the tiebreaking procedures.
PWHL ARRIVES IN VANCOUVER
Last Wednesday, the PWHL officially arrived in Vancouver with the announcement of expansion to Canada’s third-largest market for the 2025-26 season. The news “we got a team!” was proudly declared by nine-year-old Sidney Mildon of the Vancouver Angels, surrounded on stage by her teammates and in the presence of media and special guests in attendance at The Stack Rooftop. For more coverage of the news, click here to listen to the Jocks in Jills podcast for an exclusive interview with Amy Scheer, PWHL Executive Vice President of Business Operations, and here for a TSN interview with Jayna Hefford, PWHL Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations. See the full press conference here and visit the PWHL Vancouver website for information about tickets and team gear.
PWHL TEAMS UP WITH LULULEMON
On Saturday, the league launched a first-of-its-kind collection with athletic apparel company lululemon. Available for fans exclusively in-venue, the collection features hoodies, crews, T-shirts, jackets, half-zip, and crossbody bags, all inspired by PWHL teams. This marks lululemon’s first professional women’s sports league branded collection. For more, read this piece by Women’s Wear Daily.
FLEET AT FENWAY
Last Wednesday, the Fleet were in attendance at Boston’s Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox take on the Seattle Mariners, and the team’s World Championship gold medal trio of Aerin Frankel, Megan Keller and Hilary Knight threw out ceremonial first pitches. Keller also joined the NESN studio for an interview, and Frankel got to meet her fellow ‘Green Monster’.
RECORD CROWD IN OTTAWA
The first game following the league’s international break set a new attendance record in Ottawa’s 24-game history at TD Place with a sold-out crowd of 8,576. Celebrating the team’s Pride Unity Game, fans cheered the Charge to a thrilling 3-2 victory over Montréal. PWHL attendance through 84 games of the regular season now stands at 614,234 – an average of 7,312 per game.
ROESE ROCKS THE ANTHEM
Ottawa fans were also treated to a surprise rendition of O Canada in the nation’s capital on Saturday. Charge defender Jincy Roese shocked the crowd, and her teammates, when she skated to center ice and took the microphone to sing. The Missouri native impressively belted out the bilingual version of the anthem, giving a everyone performance to remember. Click here to watch.
CHARGE SET SHORTHANDED GOALS RECORD
Defender Ashton Bell scored with just 13 seconds remaining in regulation to lead the Charge to victory and give the team a record fourth shorthanded ‘jailbreak’ goal of the season. Teammate Alexa Vasko’s jailbreak goal on Mar. 11 was also a game-winner, with additional shorthanded tallies this season courtesy of Rebecca Leslie (Mar. 25) and Gabbie Hughes (Feb. 13). Ottawa has produced four of the league’s 10 jailbreak goals this season, followed by Boston and Montréal with two each, New York and Toronto with one apiece, and Minnesota with zero. Last season, all six teams contributed to the league’s 13 applications of the innovative rule change, with Ottawa and Toronto leading the way with three jailbreak goals each.
HISTORIC SHUTOUTS FOR PESLAROVÁ AND SCHROEDER
Boston’s Klára Peslarová has yet to allow a goal in her first five periods of PWHL action, most recently backstopping the Fleet to a 3-0 shutout win over the Sceptres on Saturday with a 29-save performance. She became just the third goaltender in PWHL history to earn a shutout in her first career start, following New York’s Corinne Schroeder and Minnesota’s Maddie Rooney during the inaugural season. Schroeder made history of her own on Sunday, turning aside all 33 shots faced in the Sirens 2-0 win over the Frost. She became the first goaltender in PWHL history to record four shutouts in a season, surpassing Toronto’s Kristen Campbell who had three shutout victories during the inaugural campaign. Schroeder also became the third goaltender in PWHL history to surpass 1,000 career regular season saves, following Frankel and Ottawa’s Emerance Maschmeyer. Campbell is just 13 saves away from achieving the milestone. This season’s 11 shutouts through 84 games matches the inaugural season total across 72 games.
LEAGUE LEADERS
The PWHL scoring race is coming down to the wire with just five points separating the first and fifth players in the rankings. Knight (15G, 13A) enters the final week ahead of the pack with 28 points, followed by Sirens rookie Sarah Fillier (12G, 15A) with 27 points, Sceptres forward Daryl Watts (11G, 15A) with 26 points, Toronto’s Hannah Miller (10G, 14A) with 24 points, and Victoire captain Marie-Philip Poulin (17G, 6A) with 23 points. Toronto’s Renata Fast (6G, 15A) leads all defenders with 21 points, followed by Minnesota’s Sophie Jaques (5G, 14A) with 19 points and Frost rearguard Claire Thompson (4G, 14A) with 18 points. Poulin leads the race for top goal scorer with 17, followed by Knight and Ottawa’s Tereza Vanišová with 15. Fast, Fillier and Watts lead the assist category with 15 each, followed by Jaques, Miller and Thompson with 14 each. Last season’s leading goal total was 20, and no player recorded more than 15 assists. In goal, Montréal’s Ann-Renée Desbiens, continues to lead the league in wins (13), goals-against-average (1.85) and save percentage (.932). Frankel sits second with 12 wins and a .924 SV%. Click to see PWHL stats.
THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE
All teams have two remaining games, culminating with a tripleheader of action on Saturday. Up first this week, Montréal hosts Boston at Place Bell on Monday, then it’s Toronto’s Pride Unity Game on Tuesday against New York at Coca-Cola Coliseum, and Ottawa hosts Minnesota at TD Place on Wednesday. Saturday’s action begins at 12 p.m. ET when the Sceptres host the Charge at Coca-Cola Coliseum, then at 1 p.m. ET the Fleet host the Frost at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell, and at 2 p.m. ET the Sirens host the Victoire at Prudential Center for the regular-season finale.
Monday, April 28, 2025
7 p.m. ET – Boston Fleet at Montréal Victoire (Place Bell)
TSN 5, RDS, NESN
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
7 p.m. ET – New York Sirens at Toronto Sceptres (Coca-Cola Coliseum)
Prime Video (Canada), MSG2
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
7 p.m. ET – Minnesota Frost at Ottawa Charge (The Arena at TD Place)
TSN 5, FanDuel Sports Network Extra
Saturday, May 3, 2025
12 p.m. ET – Ottawa Charge at Toronto Sceptres (Coca-Cola Coliseum)
TSN 1/3
1 p.m. ET – Minnesota Frost at Boston Fleet (Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell)
NESN+, FanDuel Sports Network North
2 p.m. ET – Montréal Victoire at New York Sirens (Prudential Center)
MSG, CBC, ICI TÉLÉ and ICI TOU.TV
All PWHL games will be streamed on the league’s YouTube Channel and at thepwhl.com, and are available to watch worldwide outside of Canada, and in Czechia and Slovakia where games are available via Nova Sport.