At the recently completed IIHF Women’s World Championship, five of the top seven teams’ starting goaltenders spent this season on PWHL rosters. The other two – Switzerland’s Andrea Brändli and Finland’s Sanni Ahola – have indicated that they’re considering making the jump overseas.
While Canada’s Ann-Renée Desbiens and the USA’s were the go-to netminders for the Montreal Victoires and Aerin Frankel for the Boston Fleet, respectively, Europeans Klára Peslarová, Sandra Abstreiter and Emma Söderberg played a total of seven games between them – Söderberg played six games and Peslarová part of one behind Frankel in Boston’s depth chart. Beyond that, they only practised through the season. Their only game action was for their national teams at international breaks.
“Many of the top players on European nations are shaking off rust from sitting on the bench, or in the stands for much of the season,” Ian Kennedy, editor of THN’s women’s hockey page, noted early in the tournament.
On the surface, it didn’t seem to hurt the goalies or their teams a tremendous amount. Peslarová was named the tournament’s top goaltender for the fourth-placed Czechs and Abstreiter played all five of Germany’s games in the World Championship. Both got stronger as the tournament progressed.
“I would say that we’ve both had good tournaments so it’s pretty good to see that we can be there for our teams,” Peslarová said about herself and Abstreiter after the quarterfinals. “After the disappointments during the season for my club team, I think I’m stepping up here and I’m here for the girls.”
Elaborating on her PWHL experience so far, the 28-year-old Czech goalie said, “All you do is stop pucks in practises. You miss the game situations, so it’s a little bit difficult but we’re professional goalies so we can manage how to stop the pucks and how to get into the mood for the games.”
“Peslarová is a top goaltender globally, but like any goalie, she needs repetitions,” said Kennedy, noting the situation does not only affect goalies. “It’s been an issue across the board where European players have not received similar opportunities in the PWHL.”
In Peslarová’s 40 minutes of PWHL action this season, she stopped all 15 shots she faced and is the league’s only goalie with a perfect goals-against average and save percentage. While she’s had those two periods of action, Abstreiter hasn’t had even that this season. The German netminder got into three games for PWHL Ottawa last season, but has seen no action this season for Montreal, where she’s third in the depth chart behind Desbiens and Elaine Chuli.
“I go into every practise pretending like it’s a game,” Abstreiter said about her mindset in the PWHL. “That’s kinda what I have to do. That’s what I’ve done the past couple years. I just have to be there 100 percent every single day. It’s kinda just a mental thing. At the end of the day, it’s just flipping that switch – it’s game time now.
“I think I’ve proven again that it just works for me,” the 26-year-old German netminder continued. “I don’t think it’s gonna be my future – it’s certainly not my goal to not play games during the season, but so far I’ve just been lucky that it’s still working out.”
German Goalie Sandra Abstreiter: ‘Next Year’s Gonna Be Super-Exciting’
Sandra Abstreiter played in all five games for Germany at the 2025
IIHF Women’s World Championship in České
Budějovice. Germany went 2-3 and was outscored only 12-11 in
the tournament, as Absteiter posted a goals-against average of 2.22
and a save percentage of .923.
Abstreiter kept the Germans in all four of their Group B games and was especially strong in their quarterfinal against the USA, which they only lost 3-0 despite being outshot 51-12.
Peslarová was eased into the tournament a bit more and took a while to hit her stride. Her best stretch of the was another shutout over Switzerland in the quarterfinals, a tremendous 43-save performance against the USA in a 2-1 semifinal loss, and the first half of the bronze-medal game before Czechia blew a 3-0 lead, ultimately falling 4-3 in overtime to Finland.
“Certainly for her, getting her the game minutes was an important component and she’s managed all of them really well,” Czechia’s coach Carla MacLeod said about Peslarová following the semifinal game. “She’s a pro goalie, she’s a top-end goalie in the world and she put that on display today.”
But are a couple of events during the season enough for a top-end goalie to remain at the top end?
In men’s professional hockey, players in that situation play for other teams until the club they are contracted with needs them. NHL teams have AHL and ECHL affiliates. In Europe, men’s and women’s teams loan players to other clubs, usually in a lower tier in the same country. So far, the PWHL is just a single six-team league with no other options for high-level play without travelling overseas.
“The PWHL will either need to expand, invest in player development coaches to help European players with the transition, or accept the fact European players will soon stop coming to the league,” Kennedy figures.
Expansion seems to be on the horizon with the recent news that a team will be added in Vancouver and probably another city as early as next season. That creates a few more jobs but doesn’t change the fact that teams need depth at all positions, particularly in goal, in case of injuries. It will just mean that different goalies face this scenario.
MacLeod is in a unique position to deal with both sides of the situation as head coach of the Czech national team, where Peslarová is her number-one goalie, and of the PWHL’s Ottawa Charge, where she had Abstreiter last season.
“It’s a dynamic that’s new, having the Professional Women’s Hockey League in North America,” said MacLeod. “I think everyone’s sort of navigating it differently and learning through it. I think everyone’s making the best of their scenario. I think Abstreiter had a great tournament again and, obviously, Kaki (Peslarová) had a great one for us. It’s just new, so everyone’s kinda learning through it.”