If you’ve ever watched a Professional Women’s Hockey League game and noticed it’s not burdened by many of the NHL’s bad ideas, that’s not accidental. The PWHL didn’t just inherit hockey’s rulebook—it analyzed it. Obviously, most rules survived, but some were quietly shown the door. And a few were altered in a way that makes you wonder when the men’s game will follow suit.
Let’s get the big one out of the way: body contact. The PWHL allows it in a “yes, you can be half-pregnant” way. On one hand, you cannot simply seek-and-destroy the same way the Florida Panthers do. Nor can you imitate Tom Wilson and arrive three strides late with punishment rather than puck possession in mind. On the other hand, forceful puck-related contact is more than tolerated. You can angle, finish a check, pin along the boards, and physically separate an opponent from the puck. Call it physical hockey without becoming stupid hockey.
And then there’s our favourite—the jailbreak rule. The one that makes longtime hockey fans squint at the screen for half a second and say, “Wait… what the hell?” In the Professional Women’s Hockey League, when a team scores a shorthanded goal, the penalty against them ends immediately and the jail door swings open. Aggressive pressure isn’t just tactical anymore—it’s profitable.
In addition, when a penalty call is made, there is no escape hatch for the offending team. Even if dog-tired, the remaining four skaters are not allowed to retreat to their bench for a line change. No reset. No free breath. You foul; you defend—immediately.
This is brilliant when one considers how often fatigue is the key reason a foul is committed in the first place. The much-needed fresh defenders can only join the fray once play resumes and their tired mates eventually gain possession and ice the puck.
The net result is obvious: tired defenders = more mistakes = more scoring chances = more goals = more entertainment.
And then there’s overtime. In the PWHL, teams play 10 minutes of three-on-three overtime in the regular season before the last resort—the dreaded shootout—is adopted. In practice, that means far fewer games need it.
The longer overtime also changes incentives. Ten minutes of open ice is a long time to survive if you’re passive, and a long time to capitalize if you’re bold. By the time a shootout arrives, it feels less like a gimmick and more like a just solution after every other option has failed.
Officiating, while still human, follows a noticeably different tone. Stick infractions get called. Dangerous contact gets called. Reputations don’t impact decisions. The standard is clearer, which has an odd side effect: players adjust instead of arguing with officials. When expectations are consistent, theatrics become unnecessary. That alone puts the PWHL ahead of most professional leagues that still treat the rule book like a collection of suggestions.
One of the biggest—and most intelligent—differences is the PWHL points system that determines the final standings:
PWHL: Uses a 3–2–1–0 system (3 for a regulation win, 2 for an OT/Shootout win, 1 for an OT loss, 0 for a regulation loss).
NHL: Uses a 2–1–0 system (2 for any win, 1 for an OT/Shootout loss, 0 for a regulation loss).
This comparison exposes the NHL’s favourite illusion, where two wildly different outcomes somehow produce the same standings math.
In the NHL, a team that loses in overtime gets the same single point as a team that loses in a shootout, even though one team lost playing hockey and the other lost during a skills contest.
At the other end, a team that wins in overtime or a shootout gets the same two points as a team that wins in regulation, despite taking longer and needing an extra format to do it.
So wildly different outcomes—regulation wins, overtime wins, shootout wins—are all treated the same, even when they clearly aren’t. As of today, the Montreal Canadiens are sitting in a playoff position, despite having the fewest regulation time victories in the entire eight-team Atlantic Division.
Leagues that use a three-point system remove that kind of idiocy. Regulation wins are worth more, overtime wins are worth less, and losses are properly separated. The standings start reflecting how games were won and lost, not just that they eventually ended.
In the PWHL, urgency in regulation time actually… matters, which is a concept the NHL continues to flirt with but never commits to. The need to finish a game in regulation to earn three points adds an extra layer of competitiveness that the NHL clearly needs but stubbornly refuses to adopt.
Think about it. Like the ladies have.
