PWHL's 'Pick Your Opponent' Playoff Rule About To Become Reality

The PWHL will allow the first overall team to choose their opponent from the third and fourth place finishers, which could create instant motivation for the opening round.

The PWHL is entering it’s final stretch of games with all teams having 3 to 4 games remaining in the regular season, typically when playoffs are near in other leagues such as the NHL teams are jockeying for position for favourable matchups. The PWHL is no NHL, they do things differently. No team will have any certainty when the final game of the regular season ends as to who the first round playoff matchups are with 4 teams securing playoff spots. In the PWHL the best team at the end of the season will decide their opponent between the 3rd and 4th place teams.

“It's new and interesting,” says Daryl Watts of PWHL Ottawa. “I think it generates talk for the league, because it's different than the NHL.”

It's a novel concept that brings rivalry with an automatic chip on the shoulder for the team that is selected.

“I think that would be incredibly motivating,” said Watts. “When it comes to playoff hockey, the last thing you want to ever do is give your opponent an edge or something to be fired up about.”

The curious question for the team who finishes first at the end of the PWHL regular season is, how to approach choosing your opponent, emphatically or tepidly?

“I don't know how I would pick,” said head coach of PWHL Ottawa Carla MacLeod. “ I think you got to be a little careful with all that."

Will teams look to pick based off how they have matched up versus each team as a determining factor? Will they go solely based on the standings?

These are all questions that will come to fruition shortly.

The interesting tidbit moving forward is that if the playoffs ended today on April 22nd, PWHL Toronto would be the number one seed and would pick between third place PWHL Montreal and fourth place PWHL Ottawa. Toronto has won all five games versus PWHL Montreal but has gone 1-3-0-0 against PWHL Ottawa. Even though PWHL Ottawa is the fourth seed it might be more advantageous for PWHL Toronto to play PWHL Montreal, rather than PWHL Ottawa.

The hypothetical was asked to PWHL Ottawa's Gabbie Hughes about which team she’d like to play in the playoffs if she were to pick.

“Definitely against Toronto, we have a pretty good track record, we love playing against them, we play really good against them so that'd be a good one,” said Hughes.

Only time will tell what the first place team will do. Regardless, it’s a great wrinkle to add some spice to the PWHL playoffs.

“It's kind of fun, right?” said Carla Macleod.