PWHL second-half storylines to watch: Can the Fleet keep cruising?

One week after Canada suffered a crushing overtime loss in the Olympic gold-medal final, captain Marie-Philip Poulin and her Montreal Victoire have a chance to earn a share of first place in the PWHL.

Good news would sure be welcome for Poulin, Laura Stacey, Ann-Renée Desbiens, Erin Ambrose and Kati Tabin, the Victoire contingent that suited up for Canada and lost the biggest game of all to the rival Americans. 

Heck, good news is welcome in Canadian hockey, period, after both of this country’s national teams lost in 3-on-3 overtime to Team USA and had to settle for silver medals.

But that’s all behind us, sports fans. Right? Great. And as regular schedules resume, we’re most definitely looking ahead. 

To open the second half of the PWHL season, the Victoire are set to visit New York, with puck drop at 7p.m. ET on Thursday. With a win, Montreal would tie Boston for first place. The Fleet, however, are riding some very good vibes from Milan. 

Here’s a look at the run Boston players are on and other key storylines as the PWHL returns to action after the Olympic break and kicks off the second half of Season 3. 

Fleet replete with clutch performers

The Fleet lead the league with eight regulation wins against just two losses, and Milan offered a reminder of why this team continually comes up big. 

Consider that the PWHL sent 61 players to the Olympics — that’s 30 per cent of the league — and three of the biggest heroes play for Boston. Two scored game-winners with medals on the line, and the third stopped just about every puck she saw on Olympic ice. 

Fleet captain Megan Keller is the blueliner who broke Canadian hearts when she potted the OT winner in the gold-medal game. It was Keller’s first-ever Olympic goal, and it couldn’t have been bigger as she slid the puck past Desbiens. 

Between the pipes at the other end for Team USA was Fleet goalie Aerin Frankel, who stood on her head all Olympics, allowing just two goals in six games, good for a filthy 0.39 goals against average to accompany her.979 save percentage. She also set a record for the most shutouts ever recorded in a single Olympic women’s hockey tournament, with three.

And in the bronze-medal game, Fleet forward Alina Müller scored the winner for Switzerland — in the final minute of overtime, no less — to help secure her country’s first Olympic medal in 12 years. 

The Fleet got off to quite a start this season, with victories in their first five games, and considering all their clutch performers’ success on the biggest stage, you have to like their chances to continue their winning ways. 

Can Toronto turn things around?

The Sceptres, meanwhile, are in a very different boat: a point out of last place, with two games in hand on the basement-dwelling expansion team from Seattle. 

The league’s two bottom-ranked teams open their second halves against each other in Seattle on Friday, Feb. 27 at 10 p.m. ET, and the loser will own last place. 

Much of Toronto’s trouble can be blamed on a lack of offensive production. The Sceptres rode a three-game slide into the break and failed to score a single goal in their last two tilts, against Vancouver and Montreal.

Daryl Watts is tied for eighth in scoring league-wide, with six goals and five assists in 15 games, but she’s the lone Sceptres player who ranks top-20 in points. 

The good news for the club run by Team Canada’s brass — head coach Troy Ryan and GM Gina Kingsbury — is a lot can change in a hurry in a league that awards three points for a win. Currently, 14 points separate last from first, and Toronto is seven points out of a playoff spot. 

Teams have between 14 and 16 games remaining, so there’s plenty of time for drastic changes in the standings. That’s good news for Canadian teams in the PWHL: If the playoffs were to open now, only Montreal would have a shot at the Walter Cup. 

Frost players could have a very big year

Speaking of the Walter Cup, so far in the league’s history the big trophy has only been won by Minnesota, with the Frost now eyeing a three-peat. And unlike Toronto, this team has no trouble producing.

The PWHL’s top four point-getters all suit up for the Frost, including the 16-points-in-15-games club of Kendall Coyne Schofield, Britta Curl-Salemme and Taylor Heise, and point-per-gamer Kelly Pannek. 

All four also just won Olympic gold with Team USA, along with Frost defender Lee Stecklein and forward Grace Zumwinkle.

What a year it would be for those six Frost players to win Olympic gold and bring the Walter Cup to the State of Hockey for the third straight year. 

And what a year it’d be for Heise. She’s getting married this summer, she’s getting a dog, she just won gold in her Olympic debut, and she’s hoping to add that third Walter Cup to her resume. As she told Sportsnet, she has high hopes for 2026: “I think obviously not everything goes your way,” Heise said before the Olympics, “but I sure hope it does.”

So far, everything sure is going her way. 

More from Sportsnet

‘The goal doesn’t change’: Kendall Coyne Schofield wants the three-peat

When the lights are brightest, Sarah Nurse comes to play

Tank, and then dominate, for Harvey

The 2026 PWHL draft class is absolutely lights out, and it’s led by Caroline Harvey, a generational talent who will come into the league and make an immediate impact.

That seems a near certainty, because the 23-year-old Wisconsin Badgers defender just did exactly that at the Olympics, earning MVP honours with two goals and seven assists in seven games, while being more-than-noticeable with an extra gear and extra silky mitts during her debut Winter Games.

Harvey, who was also named top defender and earned all-star honours at the Olympics, is joined in the Class of 2026 by her good pal Laila Edwards, another Wisconsin defender who got an Olympic all-star nod, and winger Abbey Murphy, whose skill and get-under-your-skin play were on full display in Milan. All three are players pro teams can’t wait to add to their rosters. 

Four teams won’t make the playoffs, and the PWHL’s unique Gold Plan means the team that earns the most points after they’re mathematically eliminated from playoff contention also earns that coveted No. 1 pick.  

So, it pays to win a lot, but only after you lose a lot. The team that strikes that balance best will land Harvey, and she has the type of skill to turn a club’s fortunes right around.