It’s that time of year again! Time to obsessively check the standings page, even if no games have happened recently, just to think about all the possible scenarios ahead. The PWHL season only being 30-games per team means that the playoff race really starts from the very beginning of the season. With the 3-2-1-0 points system, you’re never out early. But it’s a lot easier to get out of a hole than to try to dig out of it. Now we’re getting to the point of the season where the end-of-season clock is ticking louder and louder. Time is running out for teams to make one big push to secure a playoff spot.
Obviously, these teams are going 100% from the time the puck drops in November. A 30-game season doesn’t allow for much dawdling. No matter how hard teams were going for the first two-thirds of the season, they need to find an extra gear now. Ottawa in the 2024-25 season is an excellent example of what it’s like to find that extra gear. In the first 14 games of the season they allowed about 30.5 shots against per game. But then, in the last 16 games of the season, they became one of the best shot suppression teams, allowing 26.3 shots against per game. This led Ottawa from winning five of their first 14 games to winning ten of their last 16 games.
The Playoff Format
Before getting into the playoff race proper, it’s important to know the playoff format. With a new and growing league like the PWHL, fans have had to deal with quite a few changes from season to season. Approaching the start of this season with eight teams for the first time, everyone was wondering what the playoff format would be this season. For once, it feels like the PWHL kept it simple, and it’ll be the same format as years previous. The top four teams in standings points will make the playoffs.
A fun wrinkle the PWHL added is that the number one seed chooses to play either the third or fourth seed in the first round of the playoffs. In somewhat amusing fashion, though, the top seed picking their opponent hasn’t led to them winning any series. Both Toronto and Montreal lost their first series as the top seed. Some lore, as the kids say, for those who might be new or don’t remember: the second seed has yet to win a playoff series as well, so both Walter Cup Finals have been between the third and fourth seeds.
The Gold Plan
There’s another interesting twist in all of this playoff action. Even if a team is eliminated from the playoff race, the fans still have something to cheer for. Unlike in most other leagues with drafts, PWHL fans will still root for wins after their team is eliminated from the playoff race, thanks to the Gold Plan. The Gold Plan was created by Adam Gold, who came up with the idea that teams need to earn the first overall pick through wins, or at least by continuing to earn points. This would hopefully keep fans engaged, because rather than rooting for losses, fans still root for wins.
How it works
When a PWHL team is officially mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, they then earn points towards separate standings featuring all playoff-eliminated teams. The team with the most points after having been eliminated gets the first overall pick. This is the first time we have eight teams in the league and four teams eliminated from playoff contention. So, the question is whether the other picks are also in contention for teams to move up to grab. For example, can the team that finishes fifth somehow end up with second overall or third overall? The wording in the PWHL press release for the 2025-26 season is a tad vague. But my interpretation of it is that, theoretically, the PWHL team with the worst regular season record can still end up finishing with the fourth overall pick.
In the past two seasons, the Gold Plan hasn’t really come into effect. New York finished with the worst record in both seasons and ended up with the first overall pick in both seasons. Ottawa in year one and Boston in year two were both eliminated on the last day of the season, unable to even try to earn Draft Order Points and rendering the Gold Plan useless in a sense. This season, with four teams missing the playoffs, we should see the Gold Plan take more of an effect. And at the very least, we’ll hopefully see two teams fighting it out for the first overall pick. No matter which team you’re rooting for, you’re not getting a break from the stress, even if your team is out of the playoff race.
“On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!” will continue with Part II.