PWHL Notebook: All Eyes are on the PWHL Takeover Tour™ and Playoff Picture
NEW YORK AND TORONTO – A closer look at highlights on and off the ice from around the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) with just 16 games remaining in the schedule.
LAST STOP, ST. LOUIS
The PWHL Takeover Tour™ will make its ninth, and final, stop in St. Louis on Saturday, Mar. 29 at Enterprise Center where the Boston Fleet will take on the Ottawa Charge at 1 p.m. CT. Fans have the opportunity to see both teams in action before puck drop with an open practice and autograph session scheduled on Thursday evening with the Charge and Friday afternoon with the Fleet. The eighth game of the Takeover Tour™ in Detroit set an attendance record for a professional women’s hockey game in the United States with 14,288 fans and boosted total tour attendance to 115,023 through the first eight games. Click here for more.
PWHL PLAYOFF PICTURE
Montréal (10-6-3-6) remains atop the PWHL standings with 45 points and can clinch a playoff berth with a regulation win against fourth-place Minnesota (7-5-4-9) on Wednesday. The Frost have 35 points and sit behind second-place Toronto (11-2-5-7), who have 42 points, and third-place Boston (8-6-4-6), who have 40 points. The Sceptres and Fleet go head-to-head on Wednesday and also have weekend matchups that may have playoff-clinching scenarios. Ottawa (9-1-4-10) is in fifth-place with 33 points—just two points behind the Frost with a game in hand— and New York (5-4-4-12) has 27 points in sixth. With five games remaining, the Sirens have a maximum point potential of 42 and can no longer surpass the Victoire or the Sceptres. Click here for full PWHL standings and here for the tiebreaking procedures.
BOSTON BEST IN YEAR-OVER-YEAR ANALYSIS
All six teams have now played at least 24 games which matches the duration of the inaugural season’s 72-game schedule. Boston showed the most significant improvement year-over-year with five more points (40 points, 8-6-4-6, up from 35 points, 8-4-3-9) and a goal differential of plus-18 (+11 in 2024-25 vs. -7 in 2024), largely attributed to 16 more goals scored offensively. Montréal bettered their point total by four (45 points up from 41), both Ottawa (33 points up from 32) and New York (27 points up from 26) showed one-point improvements in the standings, and Minnesota stayed even at 35 points. Toronto is the only team to show regression in terms of points, going from 47 in the inaugural season to 39 in their first 24 games.
ATTENDANCE UP 35 PERCENT YEAR-OVER-YEAR
The first 72 games of the 2024-25 PWHL season had a total attendance of 529,844, capped by a sold-out crowd of 8,351 at Toronto’s Coca-Cola Coliseum on Wednesday. The per-game average of 7,359 is a 35 percent increase from the 5,448 per-game average generated from 392,259 fans in 72 games during the inaugural season. New York’s season-high crowd of 4,767 at Prudential Center on Saturday, and Montréal’s fourth sold-out crowd of 10,172 at Place Bell on Sunday, brings the season’s attendance through 74 games to 544,783 – an average of 7,362 per game.