They Aren’t Cooked Yet: The 2025 PWHL Bounce Back Candidates

Bouncing back, or regressing to the mean, after slow starts is a staple of hockey. As watchers of hockey we know there are many factors that go into scoring goals, such as health, luck, systems, goaltender play, etc. We also know that eventually the skilled talented players will figure it out and bounce back after a slow start. Not every player does though due to a few factors, such as the aging curve finally catching up with them, or they never get fully healthy which keeps them from reaching their potential. Right now, every team is hoping to get a boost from some players who have been struggling to start the season. With the season quickly approaching a third of the way through, now would be a great time for these players to start going off.

Boston Fleet

If there’s any team that needs some players to have a bounce back right about now it’s the Boston Fleet. They sit second-last in points (10), points percentage (0.37), and win percentage (0.333). They have the second worst Shots For % (46.6%), the worst Goals For % (42.9%), second worst even-strength Goals For % (42.3%), and worst team shooting percentage (8.07%). Goals aren’t going in the net for Boston but there’s hope for the Fleet yet. The biggest hope at keeping this ship afloat is 2024 PWHL rookie standout Alina Müller.

Müller led the 2024 Fleet in points, primary points, and was second in goals. This season it’s a single point and that single point is a secondary assist. The Müller who dragged the Fleet into the playoffs last season and kept their season alive with a Game Four OT winner versus Minnesota doesn’t exist right now. Last season wasn’t much of an aberration either as she had a storied NCAA career with one of her accomplishments being five straight Patty Kaz Award finalist finishes. There is some concern that the headshot she took in a game versus the Frost has delayed her recovery back to 100%. Regardless, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Müller ends up on the scoresheet regularly sooner rather than later.

The other player Boston should start seeing back on the scoresheet soon and often is center Hannah Brandt. Nobody is being affected more by her teammates not being able to finish than Brandt. Not just finish, but they can’t get any shots through to the net either. Brandt isn’t the type of player that generates a lot of shots on her own. Last season, Boston had the third highest shots for per 60 minutes (SF/60) at 28.56, and this season they’re dead last at 24.19 SF/60. Last season, Brandt shot at a 12.8% rate and this season it’s at 11.1%. She’s not a prolific goal scorer so that shouldn’t change much. What should change is her assists should be going up. She’s currently on a line with Jamie Lee Rattray and Theresa Schafzahl who have a combined one goal between them. They’re going to start scoring soon which means Brandt will be seeing some assists given to her.

I’m going to throw out one more name that won’t have a major impact in her bounce back but will provide some sort of an impact: Lexie Adzija. She ended last season with six goals, which tied her with teammate Hilary Knight and the Minnesota Frost’s Kendall Coyne Schofield. The important part to remember here is that Adzija had a 20% shooting rate last season and that’s probably not coming back. That’s extremely high, as only Claire Dalton shot that high last season, and while there’s 12 players shooting at 20% or higher this season, that won’t last. Adzija currently has zero goals and with her strength in front of the net that’s going to stop. The other promising aspect of her game is she has 6.85 shots on goal per 60 minutes and 13 shots on goal already this season. With where she plays, the goals are going to come. Not many of them, but even some will go a long way for this Boston team.

Minnesota Frost

The Frost seem to be about the last team that is going to have positive regression to the mean. They’re firing on all cylinders with the second highest goals for per game played (GF/60) (2.93), highest even strength goals for per game (EVGF/GP) (2.22), and second highest team shooting percentage (SH%) (10.2%). There’s a reason they currently sit second in the league in points (16) and points percentage (0.593). Even though everything is going pretty damn well for Minnesota, there’s still a few players I’m sure they wouldn’t mind seeing better numbers from to ensure they’re ready to defend their Walter Cup Championship.

We’re going to start off with a hot take right off the bat in Grace Zumwinkle. She has three goals in seven goals, a 0.43 goals per game pace which isn’t far off at all from her 0.46 GPG pace from last season. She’s even shooting at a higher rate than last season with a 17.6% shooting percentage, up from 11.2%. She’s a goal scorer, and while she probably has a bit more to give in the goals department, not many teams are complaining about three extra goals in the line-up. This is Grace Zumwinkle though, and expectations for her are higher. The Frost need her back to herself or close to it from last season where she essentially dragged Minnesota screaming into the playoffs. Her PTS/60 and PTS1/60 are both down by almost 1.00 each. That’s essentially one point every three games she’s not getting. While her SH% is eventually going to drop, she can mitigate that by putting more pucks towards the net. Last season she had 12.99 SOG/60 while this current season sees her at 7.95 SOG/60. Her coming back healthy is very important as they need their best players to be their best, unless you think Petrie and McQuigge are going to keep scoring on every fourth shot.

This name has gone under the radar this season because she’s not known for her offensive prowess and shouldn’t be expected to put up big numbers. You’re expected to do something though, especially if you’re playing about 23 minutes a game. That’s not to say Lee Stecklein is having a bad season, but she is definitely off to a start below expectations. Frost Head Coach Ken Klee has been able to spread out the minutes more on the blue line than last season where Stecklein played about 27 minutes a game in the regular season. Though this season she’s down to 23:47 a game, that’s still the most minutes on the team, especially now that since Jaques is out, Stecklein has been seeing more PP minutes. Stecklein’s 0.33 points per game might be out of reach now that she has two more offensive blue liners in Thompson/Jaques on the team plus the lower minutes. You’d like to at least see her match her 0.73 PTS/60 from last season especially with the league average save percentage (SV%) having dropped. Instead, she’s at a 0.28 PTS/60. With her team seeing the PWHL’s second highest GA/60 (2.71) and Stecklein having a -1 plus/minus rating, the Frost need something more from Stecklein either offensively or defensively.

The Frost’s defense hasn’t been great but seeing Nicole Hensley go from one of the most consistent goalies in the PWHL (0.714 quality starts %) last season to one of the most inconsistent goalies (0.333 QS%) this season has been a surprise. Last season, there was a clear correlation between SV% and SA/60 where the lower the SA/60, the lower the SV%. No goalie lower than Hensley in SA/60 had a higher SV% than her. To add to this, Nicole Hensley had a 0.919 SV% and the league average SV% was at 0.921 so she was barely below league average. This season the league average SV% is 0.909 and Hensley is at a 0.881 SV%, noticeably below league average.  We can’t even really blame SA/60 this time around as both Elaine Chuli and Maddie Rooney have lower SA/60 but higher SV%’s. The good news is that it’s been three starts for Hensley with two of those coming against New York, which is Minnesota’s kryptonite, it seems. Once she’s back and in a regular rhythm you can expect Hensley’s numbers to improve noticeably.

Montréal Victoire

Much like Minnesota, Montréal as a team is cooking right now and sitting in the best position in the PWHL. They’re first in the PWHL in points with 17 and have a game in hand on second-place Minnesota, who has 16 points. One regulation win puts them four points ahead, the beginnings of a cushion for the Victoire. This feels mostly sustainable too as Montréal sits with the best SF% at 53%, second best GF% at 55%, and second highest EVGF% at 57.1%. Maybe the most comforting fact is Montréal is not riding a PDO wave. They sit second in team SV% (0.923) but only fourth in team SH% (8.8%). Amazingly, despite all of those good numbers, Montréal still has players that have started off not meeting expectations.

It feels a bit crazy writing this out but the most notable player not reaching expectations so far is Victoire and Team Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin. Now as I just mentioned the Victoire don’t need prime MPP right this instance. The depth players have stepped up magnificently and Montréal has been able to defeat teams by just getting a goal from everywhere. The good news is that MPP has reached her scoring rate from last season with 0.50 goals per game this season, compared to 0.48 GPG last season. Her shooting percentage is about the same as well as she’s shooting at 15.4% this season which is up from 14.5% last season. While the goal scoring is good that’s about it for where MPP is showing up on the scoresheet. She currently has one assist so those goals are 80% of the points she has. MPP was the only other point per game player in the league last season with Natalie Spooner and now she’s very much below where she’s expected to be. The question isn’t that MPP will rebound, it’s will she rebound before the depth scoring comes back down to earth.

The other shocking name to end up on here is reigning Defender of the Year Erin Ambrose. She’s put up some production and is showing herself to still be good at the defensive side of the game. The defensive side of the game is important but where Montréal ran into issues in the playoffs was that their best players no longer were producing. The power play was never a strong point of Montréal last season either—it sat fourth in the PWHL—but now it’s dropped off a cliff to dead last at 10%. One of Ambrose’s strengths is that she’s great on the offensive side of the puck. She’s supposed to be QBing the Montréal PP and results haven’t been good. She had 0.75 points per game last season and is down to 0.38 points per game this season. In three games, Ella Shelton has matched Ambrose’s point production in eight games. This is Erin Ambrose though and her skill will win out. She’s shooting a bit more than last season, hasn’t scored a goal yet, and there’s no way a Montréal PP with MPP and Laura Stacey on it as well is going to stay at 10% for long. The points are going to start coming in for Ambrose soon.

Last but not least, where has Maureen Murphy gone to? She was one of the best rookies in the league last season and was fourth on Montréal in points (16). In fact, she was only one of four players on Montréal to hit the +10 point mark along with MPP, Stacey, and Ambrose. To put it into even more perspective Murphy finished tied 13^th in the PWHL for points alongside players such as Kendall Coyne Schofield. With all this scoring going on in Montréal and Murphy having such a great rookie season the expectation would be that she’s one of the contributors this season as well. That’s not been the case though. Her goal scoring is matching last season both in terms of G/60 (0.69) and where her shooting percentage (8.3%) is at. That’s about it for her contributions though. Her points/60 (2.33) and primary points/60 (1.60) have dropped noticeably to both being 0.69 right now. With Ambrose and MPP you can expect the points will eventually come to them as they’ll always be in positions to succeed. Murphy has seen her minutes dropped by about three minutes per game and was a healthy scratch at least once this season. She’s going to continue scoring but it’s possible the points don’t recover to close to where they were last season.

New York Sirens

For a team operating at a 0.500 win percentage and 0.500 points percentage, it’s actually a bit difficult to find a player who is off to a slow start but has a history of being a better player than they currently are. Part of that is to do with the fact that last season they were not good but their best players were still their best players. Now their best players are still producing like crazy while the depth down the line up is struggling to consistently contribute, which is why New York is where they are fighting for the last two playoff spots while Montreal is looking to keep a stranglehold on first place.

If you’ve been following my work for any length of time you’d come to recognize a skill that I believe eventually always shows up and that’s scoring ability. If you can shoot the puck among the best, even if you aren’t great in other ways, you’re going to impact the game. That’s why I think Jade Downie-Landry is off to a slow start but we’re going to see her back in the goal column soon. Her 2024 PWHL season was essentially not scoring for a bunch of games then going off and having a two-goal night. She’s playing fewer minutes this season but her goals/60 is still down from 1.43 to 0.63 and that’s going to bounce back. Why am I so confident? Well despite me being a believer that goal scorers will eventually score, she’s shooting at a 6.7% rate when last season she was at a 16.3% SH%. Even if you believe that SH% was high, her current SH% is still quite low considering her talent. She’s also still generating a lot of SOG at 9.5 SOG/60 so the process is there, but pucks are just not going in. I believe that will change.

When Ella Shelton was put on LTIR the rest of the New York blue line was going to need to step up. Defensively you had Micah Zandee-Hart and Maja Nylen Persson to fill in that gap. Offensively the team was hoping for Team Canada regular Jaime Bourbonnais to help make up for the lack of offensive Shelton’s LTIR stay was going to cause. Unfortunately for everyone that didn’t happen as Bourbonnais sits with one point, a goal, on the season. She’s been playing close to the same amount of minutes but the points per 60 has dropped noticeably from 1.29 to 0.31 PTS/60. With Shelton back to take on the tough minutes and Bourbonnais just being a skilled player in her own right, New York is hoping she can go back to focusing on the offence. Her SOG/60 (4.31) is lower than last season (5.74), which is a bit concerning though not too much. Give it some time to allow pairings to gel now with Shelton back and I think New York fans should be happy with what happens from here on out.

For the last player, this one is a big stretch, I will admit, but if she’s able to regain some of her game to end up on the scoresheet, Greg Fargo would very much appreciate it. It feels mean to point out Jill Saulnier’s slow start as she’s been injured but she’s really the only depth player who was on the team last season whose struggling this season. New York is rolling quite a few rookies and newcomers, eight non-goalies to be exact, and having a veteran such as Saulnier to set the tone in the bottom six would be big for the team. Give her a bit of time, and as long as those injuries don’t affect her speed or conditioning, she’s going to be contributing in every way possible in that bottom six. Essentially she’ll be the ideal bottom six veteran.

Ottawa Charge

This hasn’t been the ideal start for the Ottawa Charge, but they’re only one of two teams with four regulation wins, and they sit third in the PWHL standings. After barely missing the playoffs last season this is a welcome change of pace for the team. If you asked any Charge fan, they’d tell you it’s nice not having to play catch-up. Their playoff lead is slim but it’s a lead. They just have to be better than the two teams behind them. While they’re sitting in a better spot than last season, GM Mike Hirshfield didn’t make the flashiest trade in PWHL history because the headlines would be fun to see. He made the trade because he’s trying to get ahead of any future problems that would put them in the same position they were last season.

With the departure of Daryl Watts, the Charge not only needed to replace her offence but also find more offence in the line-up. A player they were hoping would step up or at least repeat her rookie season was forward Gabbie Hughes. She had a really good rookie season where she came in with high expectations having been on Team USA and having had a great career at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Hughes finished her rookie season with 12 points in 24 games but had nine goals. That tied her for seventh in the league in goals. Eight games into the 24/25 season Hughes has zero goals and a secondary assist. What’s equally concerning is her SOG/60 has dropped from 8.19 SOG/60 to 3.68 SOG/60. That’s a significant drop and if coach Carla MacLeod can figure out how to get Hughes even close to last season’s shot generation the goals will follow.

Rebecca Leslie was one of the best bottom nine forwards available on the market this past off-season who, in a little under 11 minutes per game, had some noticeable production with the 17^th best points per 60 and 24^th in PTS1/60. She was also the 20^th best SOG generator in the PWHL with 8.36 SOG/60. No one was expecting her to replace the production of Watts, just to chip in some offence from time to time. Like the rest of the team, Leslie has seen her SOG/60 drop and her point production drop as well all the way to zero. The team is fifth in the PWHL for GF/60 and is going to need contributions from everyone sooner rather than later. If the goals don’t start coming, Emerance Maschmeyer is going to see her case for PWHL Regular Season MVP become extremely strong.

I’m boing to cheat a bit here like I did with New York and pick a player coming off injury as someone who is off to a slow start, by their standards, but they’re going to rebound. It’s the Ottawa Charge captain Brianne Jenner. Ottawa needs goals and Jenner had nine goals last season while shooting at a respectable 11.5% rate. So far this season Jenner has zero goals on 22 shots, which means it’s safe to assume the puck is going to start going in for her. The Charge need it, because if they want their offence as a whole to rebound, they need their best players to start producing like the other best teams in the league. Yes, Jenner is 33 years old and the aging curve is going to be coming for her. She handled it well last season and there’s plenty of faith to be had in her turning it around to become a factor the rest of the way.

Toronto Sceptres

The Toronto Sceptres currently sit dead last in the PWHL and everything is going wrong for them. You could pick out more than three players who are off to below standard starts and should rebound at some point. Unfortunately for Toronto there might only be three players who are meeting expectations. At another point in time we’ll really dig into what’s going on in Toronto and how concerned should fans be. Let’s provide some hope first in finding three players that the Sceptres are going to see improvement from which might help turn this season around a bit.

If Toronto is going to turn this season around it has to come on the stick of Emma Maltais. The PWHL Rookie of the Year Finalist was fantastic last season. She finished seventh in the PWHL in points with Grace Zumwinkle. You could point out only 11 of those 19 points were primary points and that’s a fair argument. You play with by far the best player in the league and you’re going to come by some secondary assists. Even just counting her 11 primary points Maltais was still 16^th in the PWHL in primary points. This season Maltais has a measly two points on the season. Her primary points/60 are down by nearly half. Part of the problem is Maltais is more of an offence creator with her speed, playmaking, and forechecking. She needs someone to finish, and right now finishing ability on the Sceptres is in short supply.

Toronto has been really lacking consistent offence from their blue line and I know Renata Fast is a point per game player. I addressed this in the New Years Wish article but there’s a lot of evidence pointing to that pace not being sustainable which is why they brought in Savannah Harmon. She was very good last season for Ottawa where she played top pair minutes while putting up 12 points in 24 games, putting her sixth in points by a blueliner. This season it’s been all zeroes across the board for Harmon which is why she’s the easiest candidate to point to for a bounce back in the last two thirds of the season. Toronto isn’t scoring much right now and Harmon’s point production usually relies a lot on assists. With her on the blue line Toronto is going to see a boost in the offence which should result in a few more goals for a team desperate for any goals. The points are coming.

For this last person I’m predicting a bounce back from it doesn’t mean I think they’re off to a bad start but more just things aren’t going well for them. It’s hard not to watch Toronto, especially the game in Vancouver, and not notice just how disjointed they look in front of Kristen Campbell. She’s essentially in the same boat as Nicole Hensley right now, in that it’s a poor defensive effort in front of her and without a lot of shots against, Campbell’s numbers are going to take a hit, which they have. They’ve taken a hit to the tune of Campbell having a 0.200 QS%, 0.877 SV%, and a -4.170 GSAA this season. You can’t win with those numbers, however you can’t put the blame sorely on Campbell here. She’s making a lot of saves she shouldn’t but eventually the scoring chances become too much and Toronto is losing. This is very similar to last season where the team played poorly in front of her, just very inconsistent and unstructured, leading to bad numbers. Then the team played like a team, which led to Campbell winning PWHL Goalie of the Year. This isn’t going to continue for Campbell or the Sceptres. No one is this bad; not even New York was last season.