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What we learned in the PWHL's opening weekend: Rookies rock and goals aplenty

2 December 2024Last Update :
What we learned in the PWHL's opening weekend: Rookies rock and goals aplenty

The PWHL’s second season has begun.

Things kicked off with the Toronto Sceptres’ 3-1 win against the Boston Fleet on Saturday afternoon. Later that night, the Montreal Victoire got its first-ever shootout win — after an 0-3 record last season — against the Ottawa Charge; captain Marie-Philip Poulin scored the game-winning goal, of course.

On Sunday, the New York Sirens played the spoiler in the Minnesota Frost’s home opener — which began with a banner-raising to celebrate the team’s Walter Cup Championship — while No. 1 pick Sarah Fillier and Alex Carpenter put on a show, combining for 5 points in their first game as linemates.

It was an exciting opening weekend with all six teams in action and two of the three opening games needing extra time to be decided. Following up on the inaugural season’s success, attendance numbers were strong with over 26,000 fans across all three games in Toronto (8,089), Montreal (10,033) and Minnesota (8,022).

There’s a full week of games coming up before the league goes on an early international break for the women’s Euro Hockey Tour. In the meantime, here’s some takeaways from the first few days of the 2024-25 PWHL season.

Fresh faces, fast starts

It was a good weekend for the league’s top rookies.

As expected, Fillier made an immediate impact on New York’s top line alongside Carpenter. First, she made a highlight-reel saucer pass to Carpenter in the third period to give New York its first lead of a game in which it trailed 2-0 after the first period. Then, only 19 seconds into overtime, Fillier found Carpenter in the slot for the game-winning goal.

No. 2 pick Danielle Serdachny became the first member of the 2024 draft class to score on Saturday night with Ottawa’s second goal. Second-rounder Ronja Savolainen got an assist on the goal for her first career point.

Montreal third-rounder Abby Boreen, who was a reserve player for Minnesota last season, scored the first goal of the Victoire season and added an assist for a 2-point debut on her new team. Her goal in the second period was Boreen’s first for a team not in Minnesota, after playing high school, college and her first pro season in her home state.

Second-round pick Jennifer Gardiner scored the critical game-tying goal for Montreal, which helped the team come back and beat Ottawa 4-3 in a shootout.

New York fourth-round pick Gabby Rosenthal scored her first career PWHL goal to tie Sunday night’s game 2-2 in the second period. It was Rosenthal’s first goal since March 11, 2023, after taking last season off to complete her master’s degree, but she was a point-per-game player at Ohio State before that, winning a national title. And Minnesota’s fifth-round pick, Dominique Petrie, scored in the third period to send the game to overtime.

After it was all said and done, 12 rookies got on the scoresheet opening weekend, including eight of the top 12 picks in the draft. Toronto’s sixth overall pick, Julia Gosling, was the only first-rounder to not register a point on opening weekend.

We knew heading into Year 2 that each roster would get deeper and better with top players from the NCAA and Europe entering the league, and that came through in the first three games. Once again, the league has a crop of non-traditional rookies who’ve spent the last several years playing high-end hockey, whether internationally or in the NCAA, and they’re showing off almost immediately. That’s different from the NHL, where most top rookies enter the league as teenagers fresh out of junior hockey or a short college career and (largely) take time to adjust to the professional game.

Another hot start for Zumwinkle

Grace Zumwinkle seems to love making history in season-opening games.

Last season, she scored the first-ever PWHL hat trick in Minnesota’s debut game. Only 21 seconds into Minnesota’s opener on Sunday, she scored the fastest goal in PWHL history.

Zumwinkle, 25, won the league’s rookie of the year after scoring 11 goals and 19 points in her first season. At her best, Zumwinkle is an excellent power forward; she’s strong on the puck with excellent hands in tight and a quick release, as we saw on her first goal of the season.

Part of what should make Minnesota a dangerous team again this season — despite the Game 1 loss — is having a talent like Zumwinkle on the “second line” behind her former Minnesota Gophers teammate Taylor Heise and captain Kendall Coyne Schofield, who scored the team’s second goal. The Frost are a deep team that, with better goaltending than it saw from Nicole Hensley (who allowed four goals on 20 shots), should be a tough out this season.

First look at (more) new rules

The PWHL’s new “No Escape Rule” got plenty of looks on opening weekend.

All six teams combined for 19 power-play opportunities over three games. That meant 19 penalty kills that started without teams’ top penalty killers on the ice.

The new rule states that when a team takes a penalty, players currently on the ice must stay out for the first penalty-kill faceoff — similar to rules around icing. It’s something the league implemented in an attempt to increase scoring because — for as competitive and fun as last season was — goals were hard to come by.

On average, each team scored under 2.5 goals per game last season. Power plays struggled, too. The league-wide power-play percentage was around 16 percent — that’s low if we compare it to the NHL, which was around 21 percent last season.

The thought with the rule: The more we can get some tired players who aren’t used to penalty killing on the ice short-handed, the more power-play goals there’s going to be.

We won’t see the full impact of the rule until we’re deeper into the season, but it had its desired effect, with six power-play goals on 19 attempts for 32 percent efficiency, exactly double last year’s power-play rate.

The Boston Fleet scored the first power-play goal of the year only three minutes into the season opener, already a quarter to their production on the advantage from last season (four).

If it’s more offense the league wants, it’s more offense the league is likely going to get. Point taken. But still I don’t love the rule.

It de-emphasizes the role of players who have made their way to pro hockey as defensive specialists or penalty killers. Call me boring — and maybe I’ll change my mind as the season goes on — but I don’t really care for more production coming at the expense of jobs that should still be valuable.

Emerance Maschmeyer’s big game

Nobody made more saves opening weekend than Ottawa Charge starter Emerance Maschmeyer, who stopped 42 of the 45 shots she faced.

It wasn’t a great performance by Ottawa defensively — Montreal had 30 shots on goal by the midway point of the game — and the team was short-handed seven times in regulation, with Montreal scoring twice on the power play.

At five-on-five, though, Maschmeyer was beaten only once, by an elite wrister from Montreal forward Abby Boreen.

It’s too early for major takeaways about Ottawa’s defense, but allowing 45 shots isn’t a great start for a team that specifically tried to improve its blue line this offseason.

We can also confidently say Maschmeyer is looking sharp in the early going. She was excellent in her Rivalry Series start, making 36 saves in a 3-1 win. Then she made 36 saves on 37 shots in her lone preseason start. That’s 114 saves in her last three starts in the month of November.

I didn’t get a chance to say this on CBC Sports’ broadcast of Game 1 of the season — thank you, lake effect snow in Erie, Pa. — but Maschmeyer was my preseason pick for Goalie of the Year.

Still, Ottawa needs to ensure it doesn’t rely on 40-save performances from Maschmeyer on a nightly basis this season. No starter faced more shots than Maschmeyer last season (599) and nobody played more minutes (1,332:07). In the end, that resulted in a .915 save percentage and an early offseason.

Maybe third-round pick Gwyneth Philips being able to play more than Sandra Abstreiter — who played only parts of three games last season — will help potential burnout. But Ottawa needs to clean things up in front of its goalies regardless of who is playing.

Toronto’s top line

The Sceptres rolled out a new-look top line with Natalie Spooner out for the start of the season. Sarah Nurse, who mostly took on the 1C role with Spooner last season, lined up with free-agent Daryl Watts and third-round pick Izzy Daniel.

The trio didn’t score at even strength but looked excellent in Game 1. Nurse scored the first jailbreak goal of the season. Watts, who signed with the Sceptres in the offseason, looks like she’s going to be a problem for opposing teams all season. The 25-year-old looked dangerous and creative in her ability to generate offense for her line.

Watts finished with two assists and five shots on goal in her debut. She’s exactly the kind of player Toronto could have used last season, given how much it relied on Spooner for its production.

Daniel looked comfortable in her rookie debut, making the kinds of plays that made her the most valuable player in the NCAA last season.


PWHL Standings
RNK
  
Team
  
RW
  
OTW
  
SOW
  
L
  
OTL
  
SOL
  
PTS
  
1
Toronto Sceptres
1
0
0
0
0
0
3
2
New York Sirens
0
1
0
0
0
0
2
3
Montreal Victoire
0
0
1
0
0
0
2
4
Ottawa Charge
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
5
Minnesota Frost
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
6
Boston Fleet
0
0
0
1
0
0
0

Games this week

Tuesday: Toronto vs. Ottawa at TD Place at 7 p.m. ET

Wednesday: Minnesota vs. Boston at Tsongas Center at 7 p.m. ET

Wednesday: New York vs. Montreal at Place Bell at 7 p.m. ET

Friday: Montreal vs. Ottawa at Canadian Tire Centre at 7 p.m. ET

Saturday: Minnesota vs. Toronto at Coca-Cola Coliseum at 2 p.m. ET

Sunday: New York vs. Boston at Tsongas Center at 4 p.m. ET

(Photo of Emerance Maschmeyer making a save in the shootout: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)

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