Everything to know about the PWHL: Rules, storylines and how to watch the 2024-25 season

After a record-breaking inaugural season, the Professional Women’s Hockey League is back.

The 2024-25 PWHL season will have a whole new look: The league finally introduced team names and logos this offseason, along with proper jerseys. There will be plenty of new players from top college teams across the U.S., and from professional leagues in Europe. Plus, bigger venues, new rules and regular-season games hosted in several NHL buildings.

Year 2 officially begins on Saturday afternoon.

Here’s everything you need to know in The Athletic’s comprehensive guide to the PWHL.

What is the PWHL?

The PWHL, which began play on Jan. 1, 2024, is the newest women’s professional hockey league in North America. It’s the third league that has launched since 2007 with the hope of creating a sustainable business model around women’s hockey.

This league is backed by Mark Walter, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and consists of six franchises in Canada (Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa) and the United States (Boston, Minnesota and New York). Walter and his wife, Kimbra, own the league and its six teams under a single-entity ownership model; there are no individual team owners.

The PWHL’s advisory board includes Stan Kasten, the president of the LA Dodgers, tennis legend Billie Jean King and her partner Ilana Kloss.

What’s new this year? 

The PWHL will have a new look this season after the league unveiled its highly anticipated names, logos and jerseys.

Teams have been named: the Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost, Montreal Victoire, New York Sirens, Ottawa Charge and Toronto Sceptres.

Last season, all six teams were identified by geographic location — PWHL Toronto, for example — and players wore temporary jerseys with a basic boilerplate design. Now, teams will wear jerseys made in partnership with Bauer Hockey, the league’s official jersey partner.

The PWHL finally revealed team names and logos — and new jersey designs — in the offseason. (Courtesy of PWHL)

Teams will play 30 regular-season games each this season, up from the 24 played in the inaugural year. Several teams have also moved into new venues this season.

After bouncing between three game rinks and struggling to draw a crowd, New York has moved into a single primary venue — the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., where the team played in front of its biggest crowd (5,132) last season.

While Toronto and Montreal have moved into bigger venues full-time. Toronto will play at the Coca-Cola Coliseum, which holds around 8,000 fans — a significant upgrade from last season’s 2,600-seat Mattamy Athletic Centre. Montreal has moved into Place Bell after splitting time at Verdun Auditorium last season.

The PWHL will also play nine neutral-site games this season as part of the “PWHL Takeover Tour,” up from the two games played in Detroit and Pittsburgh last year.

The tour will bring teams across the United States and Canada with stops in Buffalo, Detroit, Raleigh, St. Louis, Denver, Seattle, Vancouver, Quebec City and Edmonton.

“It’s a reinforcement of what we perceive as widespread and growing interest around our sport,” Kasten told The Athletic. “I can’t say it enough times, these women, these world-class athletes who have been overlooked for so long, are finally seeing the recognition they should have been receiving for years and years.”

PWHL rules

The PWHL has a few rules that are unique if we compare them to the NHL.

The PWHL opted for a 3-2-1 points system over the standard 2-1-0 that the NHL has used. In the PWHL, regulation wins are worth the most at three points, while overtime and shootout wins earn two points. A loss in overtime or the shootout results in one point, and a regulation loss is worth nothing.

The league also introduced a “jailbreak” rule last season that means if a team scores short-handed, they get to free their player from the penalty box. 13 short-handed goals were scored last season led by Toronto’s Emma Maltais (2) and Minnesota’s Grace Zumwinkle (2).

The 2024 draft order was also decided using “the Gold Plan.” Instead of a lottery system that encourages losing by awarding the best odds to the worst teams, the PWHL determines its draft order based on the number of points each team earns after being eliminated from the playoffs. New York won the lottery last season after accumulating the most points, post-elimination.

GO DEEPER

Explaining the Gold Plan, the PWHL’s radical solution for tanking

Games last season were surprisingly physical, but it wasn’t due to a major rule change as many thought. Both the PWHL and IIHF allow body checking in women’s hockey when there is a clear intention of playing the puck or attempting to gain possession. The difference largely came down to how games were called by league officials.

The league — and players — have welcomed the more physical play, but a new rule this season will crack down on more dangerous hits. According to the rulebook, an illegal hit to the head will automatically result in a major penalty and game misconduct.

There will also be a “no escape rule” this season, which means that when a team takes a penalty, players on the ice must stay out for the first penalty-kill faceoff, rather than letting coaches immediately put out their top penalty killers. The rule could also mean initial penalty kill units with three forwards and one defender, if a blueliner takes the penalty.

Storylines to watch

Can the Minnesota Frost win back-to-back championships?

The PWHL’s sophomore season is going to be competitive with every roster improving via the draft and free agency. But Minnesota, the defending champion, might still be the team to beat.

Sixteen players from the Walter Cup champion team are returning in 2024-25, including rookie of the year Grace Zumwinkle, playoff MVP Taylor Heise, captain Kendall Coyne Schofield, defenders Sophie Jaques and Lee Stecklein, as well as the best goalie tandem in the league, Maddie Rooney and Nicole Hensley.

Minnesota will be even deeper this season with Canadian defender Claire Thompson — the Olympic record holder for points by a defender — and forwards Britta Curl, Dominique Petrie, Klára Hymlárová, Katy Knoll and Brooke McQuigge.

How will Natalie Spooner’s injury impact the Toronto Sceptres?

League MVP Natalie Spooner will miss the start of Toronto’s season as she recovers from season-ending ACL surgery in May. The power forward led the PWHL in goals (20) and points (27) and was named MVP, Forward of the Year and IIHF Player of the Year.

Spooner was a critical driver of Toronto’s offense last season, scoring 29 percent of the goals and factoring into 39 percent. Nobody in the league scored more game-winning goals (5), first goals (5) or insurance goals to put a game out of reach (4) than Spooner.

After Spooner’s knee injury in Game 3, Toronto was knocked out of the first round of the playoffs by Minnesota.

Toronto is going to need to figure out how to score without Spooner and they should have enough new and returning players to do so.

The team still has Sarah Nurse, who finished second in league scoring, and Emma Maltais, who had a top-10 scoring campaign of her own. The Sceptres did well at the draft, adding forward Julia Gosling and 2024 Patty Kazmaier winner Izzy Daniel. Toronto also signed the summer’s top free agent, Daryl Watts, who led Ottawa in goals (10) and finished third in points (17) last season.

Can Sarah Fillier help the New York Sirens take the next step?

New York finished at the bottom of the PWHL standings in its inaugural season, but in winning the draft lottery, won the right to select Sarah Fillier with the No. 1 pick.

The 24-year-old forward has widely been viewed as a generational talent and the best of the incoming class of talent to the PWHL this season. Fillier is a talented center with high-end offensive tools, capable of making an immediate impact in New York.

During the preseason, Fillier has been on New York’s top line on the wing beside Alex Carpenter, who led the Sirens in scoring last season and was a finalist for league MVP. Carpenter and Fillier are two elite offensive players — with high IQ, goal-scoring ability and vision of the ice — who can take turns finding one another in the slot all season if they stick together.

“It’s a lot more fun to be on the same line than against her,” Carpenter said. “I think from the first day we had camp, we were firing on all cylinders. And I think that’s something that we wanted last year.”

Last season, New York relied heavily on Carpenter and defender Ella Shelton to produce offense, but Fillier will add another dynamic scoring option to the top of the lineup and take some of the load off Carpenter — although they will likely be productive together on that top line.

Fillier is just one piece of a fresh start for the Sirens franchise with a new coach in Greg Fargo, the former Colgate women’s hockey coach; a new full-time home at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.; and other elite newcomers like defender Maja Nylén Persson.

When will the PWHL be ready for expansion?

Perhaps the biggest development of the offseason is that the PWHL is already looking to add up to two teams as soon as 2025-26.

The league has sent out over 20 requests for proposals to interested potential expansion partners, according to Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s senior vice president of business operations. That includes markets the league has targeted, as well as groups that have approached the league expressing interest in having a PWHL team.

The timeline will largely depend on the proposals — which the league hopes to finish gathering by the end of the calendar year — and the readiness and professionalism of potential markets.

“We (don’t) want to make any rash decisions,” said Scheer. “And so we’ll take our time to have the proper conversations, do the proper research, and then make a decision based on what we learned. It could be next year. It could be two years. We’ll see.”

The league will look at everything from the economic opportunity in potential expansion markets, population, youth hockey participation, women’s hockey history and existing infrastructure.

How to watch

In Canada, broadcast rights for all 90 games are split between TSN, RDS, CBC/Radio-Canada and Prime Video.

CBC will broadcast 17 games on Saturday afternoons, starting with the first game of the season on Nov. 30 at 2 p.m. ET between Toronto and Boston. Prime Video will air all 16 Tuesday night games. TSN will carry 57 games throughout the season. And there will be French-language coverage of all 30 Montreal Victoire games. Sportsnet, which broadcast some games last season, is not among the streaming partners this season.

Last season, every game was broadcast on the league’s YouTube channel. This season, however, each Canadian broadcast partner holds exclusive streaming rights to PWHL games this season, which means games will no longer be available on YouTube in Canada.

“The change is positive for the league because it helps us grow in terms of stability,” Scheer told The Athletic. “It helps us grow to ensure that the league is on the path to long-term health and that women’s hockey will be here for good.”

Games will still be produced by the PWHL and available on YouTube in the United States and internationally.

All 30 regular-season Boston Fleet games will be available on NESN and NESN+. The regional network will also air 30 additional PWHL games this season. MSG Network will also return as a regional broadcast partner and will air all 30 New York Sirens games. The Minnesota Frost season opener on Dec. 1 will be available on the local Fox affiliate (Fox 9+). A full-time Frost broadcast partner has yet to be announced.

As of Saturday, the league has not announced a U.S. national broadcast rights holder for the 2024-25 season.

Key dates

Nov. 30: PWHL opening day

Dec. 9-16: International break for the Women’s European Hockey Tour in Finland

Feb. 3-10: International break for Rivalry Series

March 2: Trade deadline (12 p.m. ET)

March 3: Roster freeze date (12 p.m. ET)

March 1: 2025 Draft declaration window opens

April 3-25: International Break for IIHF Women’s World Championship

May 3: PWHL regular season ends

May 6: Playoffs begin

View the full PWHL 2024-25 schedule here.

Season previews

Check out The Athletic’s 2024-25 PWHL season preview for a comprehensive look at each team’s rosters and outlook for the coming season.

PWHL Draft analysis

2024 PWHL Draft: Best picks and biggest surprises 

Top 50 2024 PWHL prospects

(Top photo courtesy of the PWHL)