The PWHL offseason is now in full swing. Expansion is over, the draft is gone, teams have extended many training camp invitations, and free agency has moved from a rush to a crawl. 

Here's a look at what's happening across the PWHL this week.

The summer heat has arrived, and as if mimicking the natural world, the PWHL free agency pool is running dry. Most of the remaining top players, including Kendall Coyne Schofield, Anna Meixner, Claire Thompson, Jincy Roese, and Michelle Karvinen aren't just thinking of next steps, they're thinking if they'll play in the PWHL at all next season.

The only full time PWHL players left from last season on the market are Coyne Schofield, Meixner, Karvinen, Anna Shokhina, Savannah Norcross, Vanessa Upson, and Brooke Bryant. Sandra Abstreiter is probably the top candidate remaining to sign, and there's a number of teams who she could provide important stability to in the crease.

If the PWHL free agency period feels like it has ground to a halt, it's because it has. For one, the PWHL free agent pool is almost empty. Most of the better players available spent the bulk of last season outside the PWHL staying sharp in Europe, or finishing their NCAA careers. 

The other reason is a lack of roster space. This offseason, the PWHL quietly instituted a new 19-player roster size limit. Teams can only sign 19 players this offseason, making more bubble players wait precariously to decide their future. If training camps are as brief as they were last year, most of those players will only have 3-4 practices, and potentially one preseason game to prove they belong. 

But roster sizes are already nearing the maximum in most markets meaning the bulk of players drafted in the 2026 PWHL Draft will also remain unsigned this offseason. 

Ottawa has 18 players signed, Montreal and New York 17 each (not including their restricted free agents), Seattle and Boston (not including one RFA) have 16, Vancouver (not including one RFA) and Detroit have 15. Minnesota comes next at 14, followed by Hamilton, Las Vegas, San Jose, and Toronto (not including four RFAs) at 12 each.

Watch for the expansion teams to try to sign a few more players, along with some of their draft picks so they can focus more on free agents at camp.

The PWHL lost some trust among fans this offseason. The league lacks any form of transparency, and rules in the PWHL are more like subjectively applied suggestions. The rules that do exist, exist for the moment and change without notice or public announcement, making it very confusing for fans to follow, and to understand why things are happening when they do.

One such item is that this offseason there will be no guaranteed one-year contracts. That's how contracts started in the PWHL, but then last offseason the league briefly allowed teams to sign one-year guaranteed deals. It resulted in some challenges, like Toronto giving Clair DeGeorge a guaranteed contract, and then still releasing her later in the year so that she could sign with New York after it appeared a trade for future considerations wasn't going to be permitted. This offseason, all players who sign one-year contracts are on non-guaranteed deals that can be terminated at any point. Only multi-year contracts are guaranteed. 

Another item that changed this year, is the minimum salaries for top draft picks. The past two years, draft picks in the top three rounds were guaranteed a certain salary tier. This year, with more teams, the league shifted those numbers to be based on pick number. The first six picks in the 2026 PWHL Draft will be guaranteed at least $65,000. All other draft picks are guaranteed less than league average, which this season sits at roughly $60,100. Picks 7-12 will be guaranteed $55,000, while picks 13-18 will be guaranteed $50,000. No other draft picks are guaranteed anything above league minimum, which this season sits at $38,245.