A Data Analysis of the PWHL Regular Season

With the Professional Women's Hockey League postseason kicking off this week, we wanted to review in data the trends and patterns of the league's 3rd season. We pulled play-by-play data from all 120 PWHL games this regular season — every goal, shot, penalty, and faceoff. We've also brought along corresponding NHL data for some fun and interesting comparisons between the two leagues!

Let's first dive into this season's PWHL teams and stat leaders. Minnesota, despite finishing 3rd in the standings, ran away with the most goals scored — led by league points leader Kelly Pannek and five of the top 10 goal scorers in the entire league. Montréal and Boston sit atop the standings with solid goal scoring as well, but notably limited goals against to just 1.4–1.6 per game, the two best defensive records in the league.

PWHL goals per game by team

Here's how all eight PWHL teams rank in goals scored per game this season:

PWHL goals allowed and goal differential per game

Montréal and Boston were the clear defensive leaders this season. Seattle allowed the most goals by a wide margin. Goal differential tells a fuller story — Montréal's +1.23 per game was the best in the league.

PWHL shots on goal per game by team

Shot volume tells a different story. Montréal and New York lead the league in shots on goal per game, while Minnesota leads in scoring:

Where PWHL players come from

The PWHL draws talent from around the world. Of the 218 players on rosters this season, Canada and the United States together account for 86% of the league, with Czech Republic the largest international contingent at 4%.

Scoring leaders

Here are the top 10 players in points this season, with goals and assists shown separately:

Goals leaders

Assist leaders

Faceoff leaders

Among players with at least 100 faceoff attempts this season, Alina Müller (BOS) and Marie-Philip Poulin (MTL) are the league's top faceoff specialists. Müller won 63.2% of her 400 draws, while Poulin came in at 62.6% on 329 attempts — both among the best in pro hockey at any level.

Minnesota's scoring connections

While Kelly Pannek led the league in goals and points, Minnesota's elite offense has several contributors who each play a large part. Below we break down the team's assist network — each bar shows how many times the first player set up a goal for the second player (assister → scorer), for all pairs with 3 or more such goals this season.

Top scoring connections league-wide

Minnesota dominates the top pairs, but Ottawa's Jenner–Leslie duo is the most prolific connection in the entire league this season. Each bar is colored by the duo's team.

Goalie leaderboard

Ann-Renée Desbiens (Montréal) and Aerin Frankel (Boston) had standout seasons — both posting save percentages above .950, the best 1-2 goalie duo in the league and a huge reason why their teams finished atop the standings. No other goalie finished above .935.

Sample game flow: Toronto at New York, Dec. 21

We can also look at individual game flow charts to see how the final score compared to expected goals based on shot and location data. In this game, New York actually generated higher expected goals (2.61 xG, 40 shots) compared to Toronto (1.78 xG, 27 shots) — but Toronto came away with a 4–3 victory, led by Jesse Compher's 2 goals and 1 assist for 3 points.

Time on ice leaders by position

Here's a look at which PWHL players logged the most average ice time this season, broken out by position group.

Defensemen — Average TOI per game:

Forwards — Average TOI per game:

Just under half of games are decided by 1 goal

45% of PWHL games this season were decided by a single goal, compared to 43% in the NHL. 18 of 114 PWHL games (15.8%) required overtime to decide a winner.

No PWHL game this season was decided by more than 5 goals. In the NHL, margins of 6, 7, 8, and 9 goals have all occurred.

Shot charts: Pannek, Leslie & Eldridge

Kelly Pannek leads the PWHL in points this season with 33. Jessie Eldridge and Rebecca Leslie are tied for second in goals with 14 each. Here are their full shot charts — every shot they've taken, with goals highlighted.

First goal, momentum & comebacks

The team that scores first wins 74.2% of the time in the PWHL this season (89 of 120 games). Game tempo varies a lot by team — Minnesota games have a median first goal under 7 minutes, while Montréal's defensive style pushes that to nearly 16 minutes. Boston scored the opening goal in a remarkable 23 of 30 games (77%), though that edge doesn't always translate: Seattle scored first in only 8 games but converted just 3 of them into wins (38%), the lowest rate in the league.

In 86 of 120 games a team held a 2+ goal lead at some point — and the trailing team came back to win in 9 of those 86 (10.5%). The largest comeback of the season: Ottawa trailed Toronto by 3 goals and came back to win 4–3, the only 3-goal comeback win of the 2025-26 regular season.

Next, let's look at some fun comparisons between the PWHL and the NHL. Most aggregate stats are close — the NHL is a slightly higher-scoring league, while the PWHL sees a few more shots per game, higher goalie save percentages, and fewer penalties per game.

Home ice advantage: PWHL vs. NHL

Both leagues show a home-team edge. Here's how the home win rate and overtime frequency compare across the two leagues.

In the PWHL's 114-game regular season, home teams won 64 games — 56.1% of the time. 18 of those 114 games (15.8%) needed overtime to decide a winner. In the NHL, home teams win roughly 54.5% of games, and about 23% of games go to overtime.

Goals and shots: the numbers

Goals by period: PWHL vs. NHL

In the PWHL this season, 39.6% of goals came in the third period — the highest of any period. In the NHL, goals are distributed more evenly: 29.5% in the first, 34.7% in the second, 35.8% in the third.

Goals are built the same way in both leagues

One way to look at how a league plays is to break down how goals are created. The assist structure on goals is nearly identical across both leagues.

About 7 in 10 goals in both leagues involve two passers.

Goal heatmaps have similar shapes

We plotted goal locations on a half-rink diagram to compare where goals come from in each league. The PWHL chart shows all 451 regulation goals this season. The NHL chart shows a random sample of 451 from over 8,000 total, so the dot density is comparable. Both leagues share nearly identical zone distributions — the vast majority of goals come from the slot and crease area.

In both leagues, the majority of goals come from the slot and the area in front of the net. The distribution by zone is nearly identical:

Penalties by type: PWHL vs. NHL

The PWHL averaged 6.2 penalties per game this season vs. 7.4 in the NHL. The mix of penalty types looks similar at the top — tripping leads both leagues — but there are notable differences: fighting accounts for 6.3% of NHL penalties and is virtually absent in the PWHL, while the PWHL draws more cross-checking and body-checking calls. On the individual side, Anna Wilgren and Mackenzie Carter (both SEA) tied for the league lead with 13 penalties each, followed by Emma Maltais (TOR) and Maddi Wheeler (NY) with 12 apiece. The PWHL power play converted at 14.4% this season (106 PP goals on ~734 opportunities), and short-handed goals were scored on 1.8% of power plays — meaning the shorthanded team turned the tables in 13 of those situations.

PWHL & NHL: Sibling Pairs

Seven sibling pairs are currently split across the two leagues — a sister in the PWHL and a brother in the NHL. Here's how each pair stacks up this season, ranked by combined points per game.

Wrapping up

The PWHL is heading into an exciting playoffs to cap off its third and most exciting regular season yet! You can catch the games live on thepwhl.com or the league's YouTube channel. For more data and charts on women's hockey, explore our PWHL analytics page on the site.