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4 Takeaways from Week 5 of PWHL: Takeover Tour Worries, Charge Turn a Corner

Ben Steiner
Ben Steiner
Dec 29, 2025, 11:33 EST
PWHL
Credit: Courtesy of PWHL

The second full year of the PWHL is officially in the books. We may be midway through the third season. Still, the full calendar year of PWHL in 2025 was just as formative as the league’s 2024 inauguration, adding expansion teams and establishing itself in larger venues across several markets. 

This week saw plenty of standout moments on the ice, as well as more Takeover Tour games, which offered plenty to ponder. 

Here, Daily Faceoff takes a look at the most significant storylines from Week 5 of the 2025-26 season as we look ahead to the 2026 portion. 

Edmonton and Dallas Add to the Underwhelming Takeover Tour

The first year of the PWHL Takeover Tour was an unabashed success, with record attendances in several cities, leading to the league’s first western expansion with the Vancouver Goldeneyes and Seattle Torrent in 2025-26. 

The second year of the project, though, has been mixed. While Halifax showed well with a capacity crowd of 10,438 at the Scotiabank Centre, the games in this week’s round of the tour were underwhelming. 

In Edmonton, with Alberta’s own Emerance Maschmeyer and a western Canadian team on show with the Goldeneyes, 10,264 fans made it out to Rogers Place, a dip from the 17,518 that were in attendance for last year’s Takeover Tour game, ranking as the lowest-attended Canadian Takeover Tour game to date.

Things became more dire in Dallas as well, with only 8,514 fans making their way to the American Airlines Center for the first game of the series in the Southern United States. That contest, which served as a homecoming for Hannah Bilka and Alysson Simpson between the Torrent and New York Sirens, ranked 13th of the 15 games. 

The PWHL has struggled to gain a foothold in the United States, even in markets with fully-fledged teams. The recent trend in the Takeover Tour should be concerning, especially if the league is steadfast in adding up to four teams in 2025-26, with only Halifax having legitimately proven themselves through this season’s tour thus far. 

Ottawa Charge Turning a Corner

The Ottawa Charge still sit at the bottom of the PWHL standings, but had their best week of the season with three straight victories, albeit all in overtime or a shootout, which did not award them the full three points. Nevertheless, the victories have helped their season after they opened with five losses in their first six games. 

They began the week with a 3-2 overtime victory over the two-time defending Walter Cup champion Minnesota Frost as part of the Takeover Tour in Chicago, before a 4-3 comeback win on the road against the Toronto Sceptres, which featured a two-goal night from Rebecca Leslie, including the overtime winner on the power play. 

After not playing a home game since Dec. 2, they also picked up their first home victory of the season, capturing a 3-2 win over the first-place Boston Fleet in the longest shootout in league history with a two-point night from Fanuza Kadirova in front of a capacity crowd at TD Place. 

The Charge are still figuring things out after losing Maschmeyer and other key players from last season’s run to the Walter Cup final, but have started to turn the corner in the final games of 2025 and will hope to carry that momentum into the 2026 portion of the season. 

Aneta Tejralová’s Big Hit

Czech forward Aneta Tejralová of the Seattle Torrent could be considered for a suspension after her hit in Sunday’s game against the New York Sirens, and the PWHL will have an opportunity to assess the biggest hit of its third season to this point. 

Midway through the first period of the Takeover Tour game in Dallas, Tejralová hit 2024 first-overall pick Sarah Fillier as she was charging through the neutral zone, sending the Canadian forward flying and hitting the ice with significant force. 

Open ice hits are explicitly banned in the PWHL’s rules, leaving the option for suspension on the table. However, fans should not expect anything significant, given the precedent, the most extended regular-season suspensions at two games, and the five-minute game misconduct penalty she was assessed for on the play. 

While Fillier continued, hits like this one and other injury-prone plays allow a young league like the PWHL to continue developing standards and approaches to such situations to avoid them or improve safety conditions in the future.

If I had to guess, there would be a one-game suspension for Tejralová, given she missed nearly 2.5 periods of the matchup against the Sirens. 

Patty Kazmaier Award Winners Love the Takeover Tour

Any player who wins the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best in NCAA women’s hockey should be in for a solid career, and those champions showcased themselves through the latest weekend in the PWHL, with three of the last four winners having standout moments this week. 

2025 winner Casey O’Brien had the flashiest moment of the week, scoring her first PWHL goal and first PWHL hat-trick to power the New York Sirens to a 4-3 win over the Seattle Torrent in the Takeover Tour game in Dallas.

Meanwhile, 2022 winner Taylor Heise scored the overtime winner for the Minnesota Frost in a 2–1 win over the Vancouver Goldeneyes in Edmonton, after 2024 winner Izzy Daniel scored the lone goal for the expansion team. 

Many of the 12 Patty Kazmaier winners in the PWHL are regular stars,whether home or away, but so many standing out in the Takeover Tour games in the same week certainly turned some heads. Now, can O’Brien pick up her form and power the Sirens to their first-ever playoff berth?

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