The PWHL's roster freeze date, more commonly referred to as a trade deadline, is rapidly approaching as the March 31 deadline looms.

In the NHL, bottom feeding teams immediately get labelled as "sellers" while championship contenders are the "buyers" on the trade market. 

As the PWHL adds more teams, the gap between the haves and have nots will only get larger. But it doesn't mean the PWHL will have an open trade market like the NHL does. There are still several factors that restrict trades in the PWHL to the extent of the NHL, whether it be at a deadline, or any other point.

This season, the PWHL saw the league's largest ever trade involving six players between the Vancouver Goldeneyes and Ottawa Charge. It's not a sign of the times, or a harbinger of more trades to come however. Instead that deal, was another carefully concocted exchange that was as much an exception to the rule, as it was a revision. 

Regardless of how much teams in the PWHL may want to make a trade, there are too many factors playing against them to believe that teams outside the playoff picture approaching the deadline will become "sellers" and those within will become "buyers."

Here's why.

Right now, draft picks can only be traded at the draft. The other 364 days of the year, trading draft picks is prohibited. In other leagues, when a team wants to "buy" a star player at the trade deadline, it typically comes with the cost of giving up prospects and draft picks, in essence forfeiting future success, for their best possible chance of current success. In the NHL, it pushes teams from contenders year after year, into long and painful rebuilds. The PWHL however, has been built upon, and prides itself on league-wide parity. It's a philosophy that could keep the league from permitting the trade of draft picks for the foreseeable future. Until the PWHL allows the trade of future draft picks, it's just not plausible to see true buyers and sellers. Similarly, while the PWHL continues its rapid expansion, the value of draft picks are too great to give up in any quantity. Even a first place team will need a pathway to replace 4-6 players next season, not including any player who chooses to leave in free agency. Attrition through expansion is too impactful to give up too many picks. 

In the PWHL, it needs to be player in for player out. There is no AHL like the NHL has where if a team trades away three more players than they bring it, that they can call up prospects and give them a chance. In the PWHL, teams must always have 23 active players, a number that must include three goaltenders. A team could conceivably trade an extra player or two and then sign players from their reserves, but it's risky. Similarly, PWHL teams can't bring in multiple high prices players in exchange for lower priced players. There are no work arounds or loop holes where salary can be buried or bought out. In three seasons, only one in-season PWHL trade has involved an uneven number of players. That move was the first trade in league history that saw Susanna Tapani and Abby Cook head to Boston and Sophie Jaques go to Minnesota. The imbalance in this case was to keep the salary cap balanced, not the roster numbers. Teams are allowed to exceed or dip under the league average salary cap, which this season sits at a $58,349 average, but must become compliant again in the offseason. Considering multi-year contracts in the league are guaranteed, carrying too many high salaries is a recipe for disaster in the long run. With the current rules, it's nearly essential that trades are both player in for player out, but dollar in for dollar out which makes any deal more difficult.

Perhaps the most potent deterrent to teams selling off top players down the stretch is the PWHL's "Gold Plan." With points still mattering following a team being eliminated from the playoffs, a team at the bottom of the PWHL standings wants to remain as competitive as possible to win the first overall draft pick. In a year like this one, where the PWHL Draft is stacked at the top, it may be less important, but the opportunity to select Caroline Harvey, a franchise changing talent, first overall, is still a monumental carrot dangling for teams looking to accrue draft order points under the Gold Plan and win the first overall pick.

Finally, even with the roster freeze, or PWHL trade deadline occuring with less than a month remaining in the regular season, some teams, like the current last place team, the Seattle Torrent, still have a half dozen or more games remaining. If a team like the Seattle Torrent were to go on a winning streak in the final month of the season and win their seven games, with the PWHL's 3-2-1 point system, a seven game winning streak would equate to 21 points. That's more points than Seattle and Vancouver currently have after 17 and 18 games respectively. It's happened before where a team has won their way into the playoffs in the final weeks of the season as the Boston Fleet did in year one, and it could easily happen again. Trading away that chance prematurely is not enduring to a fan base.

With all that in mind, the way the PWHL's rules are currently designed, there just isn't a logical case for teams to be labelled as buyers and sellers.