How PWHL teams are built: roster rules, salary cap basics, the draft system, and why it matters

The quickest way to understand why the PWHL feels competitive almost every night is to look at how teams are constructed. Roster size is standardized, the salary cap forces real trade-offs, and the draft order is designed to keep teams pushing even when the playoffs aren’t realistic.

Put it all together and you get a league where depth matters, standings points are precious, and “easy nights” are rare.

Here’s a clean, beginner-friendly breakdown of how PWHL roster-building works — the stuff that quietly shapes everything from line combinations to late-season urgency.

What a PWHL roster looks like

In practice, PWHL teams are built around a standard active roster of 23 players.

The league has also used an additional layer of depth: up to three reserve players on Reserve Player Contracts alongside the standard player agreements. That detail matters more than it sounds.

It’s how teams protect themselves against injuries, international absences, and the simple reality that hockey seasons get messy — without ballooning rosters so much that talent feels diluted.

The salary cap: parity, with room for star power

The PWHL operates with a team salary cap and a minimum salary baked into its CBA. In the league’s 2025–26 expansion season, reporting around the CBA described a $1.3 million team cap, a $35,000 minimum salary, and a requirement that at least six players per team earn $80,000+. There’s also no individual maximum salary under that structure — so teams can spend creatively as long as they stay under the team cap and meet the minimum thresholds.

From a roster-building perspective, that creates a very specific kind of puzzle:

• You can pay for top-end game breakers.
• You must build a reliable middle of the roster.
• You can’t paper over weak depth by simply “buying” another line.

That’s a big reason PWHL games tend to stay tight: the league’s best players can swing a period, but the difference between winning and losing often comes down to your third line and your second D pair executing details.

Standings points influence roster strategy, too

The PWHL uses a 3-2-1-0 points system: 3 points for a regulation win, 2 for an overtime/shootout win, 1 for an overtime/shootout loss, 0 for a regulation loss.

That setup nudges teams toward a certain identity: don’t just “get to overtime,” try to finish in 60. Over a season, that affects coaching decisions (when to take risks), lineup decisions (who you trust late), and even roster priorities (players who can defend a lead and create a push when you’re tied).

The draft: the Gold Plan and why it discourages tanking

Most leagues use lotteries to discourage tanking. The PWHL’s signature approach is the Gold Plan, which flips incentives late in the season.

Once a team is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, the standings points it earns in remaining games (again using that 3-2-1-0 system) become Draft Order Points. Among the non-playoff teams, the club that earns the most Draft Order Points gets the higher draft pick.

What it means in plain English: late-season wins can directly help your future, so “meaningless games” are harder to find. From a team-building standpoint, it also changes how organizations think about the stretch run — you’re incentivized to keep competing, keep developing, and keep your standards intact.

Roster movement: signing windows and trades

The league has structured roster movement around clear windows. For example, ahead of the 2025 draft, the PWHL announced that teams could sign players on expiring contracts and complete trades beginning at a specified date/time, and that trades could include draft picks.

That kind of structure is useful for fans and teams alike. It creates predictable “team-building seasons” inside the hockey season — moments when roster stories accelerate, depth decisions get tested, and front offices show their hand.

Expansion rules: how new teams get competitive quickly

Expansion is where parity can get stressed, so the PWHL has leaned into a step-by-step process. In 2025, the league laid out an expansion build that included protected player lists, an exclusive signing window, an expansion draft, and then the entry draft — explicitly aimed at competitive balance.

You saw how real that is when clubs like the Boston Fleet had to navigate protection decisions and roster exposure as part of the process. Even if you don’t obsess over transactions, those mechanisms shape rosters for years — who stays, who leaves, and where a team’s depth gets tested.

The entry draft: what it looks like in practice

A simple snapshot of how the entry draft works: the 2025 PWHL Draft was six rounds with 48 total selections, and the league published draft notes and pick-by-pick results.

That number is useful context. It tells you the league is constantly feeding itself talent — not so many picks that prospects get buried for years, but enough that teams can replenish depth and develop.

The takeaway

If you’re trying to read the league like a regular, keep an eye on three things:

1. Roster slots: how teams allocate their 23 active spots (and who they keep in reserve).
2. Cap choices: which positions teams “pay up” for and where they try to find value.
3. Late-season incentives: the Gold Plan makes effort and momentum matter all the way through.