With a 10-day lull in PWHL games for international break, these seemed like a perfect time to check in on the league via my favorite method (and arguably the only way I know how): through some data visualizations!

First off, let’s check in on the plus-plus standings, which is my silly calculated statistics that I described in this article:

If you want to see goals, you should be tuning in to PWHL New York games, as their players claim the top four (and one of the tied fifth) slots in the plus-plus standings so far. They’re led by Ella Shelton, topping the table an impressive +/+ of 23 over nine games for an average 2.56 +/+ per game played. However, one to watch is Savannah Harmon, who snuck in to claim one of the tied eighth slots despite having played two less games than the rest of the top skaters. In fact, if we take a look at the top skaters in +/+ from each team:

Savannah Harmon is right in the mix, equal on +/+ with Kati Tabin and Marie-Philip Poulin from PWHL Montréal; all three have a +/+ of 17. Harmon’s +/+ per games played of 2.43 is second only to Ella Shelton, whose domination is even more stark when not being compared with her teammates. Shelton boasts a +/+ five higher than the next highest in Kendall Coyne Schofield for PWHL Minnesota and Renata Fast for PWHL Toronto, both with a +/+ of 18. Megan Keller rounds out the group of team leaders in +/+ with a +/+ of 15, but her +/+ per games played of 2.14, higher than all but Shelton and Harmon among the top skaters per team, suggests that she may be further up the standings once PWHL Boston also no longer has two games in hand.

As we’re already looking at teams individually, let’s have a look team-wise through some of my favorite data viz styles: the goal involvement sunburst viz and the score growth charts. The sunburst goal visualizations are described in my data visualization reference, while my take on score growth charts (originally done by the lovely Micah from hockeyviz.com) debuted in this article doing them for the SDHL that also features a description of exactly how to interpret them.

Looking at the goal involvement sunburst viz for all teams:

I acknowledge comparing wedge sizes/angles is really hard for precise comparison (which has sparked a hatred of pie charts in the data viz community I refuse to get involved with), but for rough comparisons it works perfectly well. And by my rough eyeballing, all teams seem to have roughly the same amount of goals scored so far: no team has way more or way fewer, which is promising for the parity of my +/+ standings (and the league, I guess).

Looking at each team, in order of the current points standings:

PWHL Montréal

Laura Stacey is here for one thing: goals. All five of her goal involvements have been goals, not an assist in sight. Still, she doesn’t quite claim top goalscorer on PWHL Montréal: that honor goes to, who else, Marie-Philip Poulin, with six goals as part of her nine-goal involvements.

PWHL Montréal loves going to overtime, having had five games (which, reminder, is over half of their games so far) go past regulation, more than any other team. And considering their winning record, three wins compared to two losses, maybe they’re right to go to overtime quite so often.

PWHL Minnesota

Grace Zumwinkle has a firm grasp on the scoring lead for PWHL Minnesota with six goals, double the next highest scorers Taylor Heise and Kendall Coyne Sch4ofield, who both have three. Two-thirds of Zumwinkle’s goals came with secondary assists, despite PWHL Minnesota having the tied-lowest number of secondary assists at 12. That’s equal with PWHL Toronto, who have only 17 goals, four less than PWHL Minnesota, who at 21 goals are only one goal behind league leaders PWHL Montreal and PWHL New York at 22 goals each.

Three goals means something to PWHL Minnesota, but whether it’s good or bad is unclear: in all four of the games they’ve won, they’ve scored three goals, but they have yet to score more than that, making them the only team to have yet to score four or more goals in a game.

PWHL Boston

There’s something special about the goal connection between Alina Müller, Loren Gabel, and Megan Keller: Müller has gotten the primary assist on all three of Gabel’s goals and both of Keller’s goals, while Gabel and Keller were the primary assisters on Müller’s two goals.

Not only has PWHL Boston yet to lose a game where they’ve opened the scoring, every time they’ve scored first, they’ve scored again before their opponents for a 2-0 lead. Sure, its only happened in two of their games, and in both of those games that 2-0 lead went to a 2-1 lead, but whatever. Plus, it’s not as if the team is hopeless of they don’t score first: they’ve won another two games where they went down 0-1.

PWHL Toronto

Natalie Spooner is running away with the lead on goals scored for PWHL Toronto at seven, while the only other player with more than one goal, Hannah Miller, has just two. But she isn’t running away with the goal involvements tally too, as Rebecca Leslie is just one behind at six, comprised entirely of assists: four primary and two secondary.

PWHL Toronto may have only gone to overtime once, but they can boast a perfect record in them, having won in a shootout against PWHL Montréal.

PWHL New York

Alex Carpenter leads PWHL New York (and the league) in goal involvements at 11, but her teammates have been contributing on the goals front too: three other players (Ella Shelton, Jessie Eldridge, and Jade Downie-Landry) have three or more goals, meaning PWHL New York has more players with at least three goals than any other team.

Taking a look at their score growth chart, its easy to see why PWHL New York players dominated the plus-plus standings: seven goals is the most goals that have been scored in a PWHL game so far, having happened twice, and PWHL New York played in both of those games: a 2-5 loss to PWHL Montréal and a 4-3 overtime win against PWHL Ottawa. They also seem to fancy a comeback: both of their overtime wins started with them going down two goals first.

PWHL Ottawa

Lexie Adzija leads PWHL Ottawa in goal involvements, interestingly without a primary assist among them. On the other hand, shoutout to Emerance Maschmeyer, who is the first and so far only goalie to notch a primary assist.

PWHL Ottawa is currently bottom of the standings, but with two games in hand and only one point behind both PWHL Toronto and PWHL New York, the two teams directly above them in the standings, it seems reasonable to believe they may not stay there. However, they seem to struggle after regulation time, as they have lost all four of their games that have gone to overtime.