While salary disclosure is yet to become public, the discussion of the highest paid players continues to grow in the PWHL, particularly this offseason during expansion.
Earlier this offseason, it was reported by The Athletic's Hailey Salvian that New York Sirens star and 2024-25 PWHL co-leading scorer Sarah Fillier had become the league's highest paid player. While no figure was released, it's believed that salary is in the range of $125,000. This week, the Associated Press reported that the extension signed by Ottawa Charge forward Emily Clark was set to give her the highest single-season salary in PWHL history.
The conversation of salaries and players receiving raises has grown across the league as PWHL expansion freed up salary among the original six franchises.
In the PWHL's inaugural season, each team was required to sign at least six players earning $80,000 USD or more. League minimum was $35,000 USD with a team average of $55,000 in year one, figures that will climb to $37,131.50 and $58,349.50 USD this season.
For the back-to-back Walter Cup champion Minnesota Frost, that inaugural season involved the team carrying seven players at or above the $80,000 USD mark after the acquisition of Sophie Jaques from Boston. In Minnesota, three of those players earned $80,000 on the dot. Minnesota had no player on their roster in year one or year two making more than $100,000 USD. In year two the team had three players top the $90,000 USD mark, and this year will have their first player making six figures as foundational player and team captain Kendall Coyne Schofield tops the mark.
Prior to Fillier's contract extension this season, the top paid players in the PWHL were earning over $120,000. It's a changing of the guard in the PWHL as players like Fillier begin to surpass veterans including Marie-Philip Poulin and Brianne Jenner who opened the league as two of the top paid players in the PWHL. Currently, there are only eight players in the PWHL who will make more than $100,000 USD in 2025-26.
This offseason the PWHL allowed salary retention in trades for the first time as well, allowing Toronto to retain a portion of Kristen Campebll's salary to move her to Vancouver, and for the New York Sirens to send Abby Roque, a member of the league's most highly paid players, to Montreal while retaining salary.
Prior to the launch of the PWHL, now Toronto Sceptres forward Daryl Watts was set to be the highest paid player in women's hockey signing a $150,000 per season contract with the PHF's Toronto Six. She was one of several PHF players who had signed six figure contracts. Prior to the acquisition of the PHF by the Mark Walter Group, several PHF players had signed contracts surpassing current PWHL marks. The Connecticut Whale alone had signed four players - Kennedy Marchment ($130,000), Kacey Bellamy ($133,000), Taylor Girard ($110,000) and Allie Munroe ($105,000) - to contracts above $100,000. Not all PHF teams were reporting dollar figures related to signings, while others did, including the Minnesota Whitecaps who signed now Boston Fleet forward Liz Schepers to a two-year deal set to pay her $104,000 and $120,500 annually. The year prior in 2022, forward Mikyla Grant-Mentis was reported to have signed the highest contract in women's hockey history at $80,000 USD, although the validity of that claim has since been questioned, and Grant-Mentis more accurately had the highest disclosed salary at the time.
With more expansion in the plans for the PWHL after this season or next, salary levels will continue to rise in the league. Other professional women's leagues including the WNBA and NWSL have worked to abandon their collective agreements in the last year in order to renegotiate better compensation, rights, and benefits for players. The PWHL's current collective agreement is entering the third season of an eight year pact, set to expire in 2031. Under the current teams of their collective agreement, PWHL players receive a 3% raise per season pushing the league minimum salary up to $43,045.58 in the final season of the collective agreement.
Earlier this offseason, The Hockey News' Pat Laprade published a report highlighting the salaries of PWHL staff headlined by general managers and head coaches who both make between $150,000 and $180,000 USD per season.
With the new flexibility PWHL teams have found this offseason financially following expansion, teams in the league, including the PWHL's two finalists in the Minnesota Frost and Ottawa Charge from 2024-25, have been able to offer raises to players to secure them long term. This now reportedly includes Clark, as well as Minnesota Frost goaltender Maddie Rooney who got a new three-year extension and significant raise, and her netminding opponent Gwyneth Philips of the Ottawa Charge who will see her salary climb to more than double what it was in her rookie season over the course of a new extension she signed to stay in Ottawa.