PWHL Takeaways: D.C. shows up on Takeover Tour as major trade shakes up Vancouver, Ottawa
The 2026 portion of the PWHL season has already seen some historic marks set, from outstanding turnout at the Takeover Tour game in Washington, D.C., to the lowest attendance on record at the Battle of Bay Street.
And how about the biggest trade in league history going down on Sunday night between the Vancouver Goldeneyes and Ottawa Charge?
If you’ve missed a PWHL Takeover Tour game showcase on your calendar during the 2025-26 season, you can be forgiven – there’s already been nine of them, taking teams away from home markets to test out potential expansion cities.
It was a busy week in the PWHL as things ramped up towards the 2026 Olympics in Milano-Cortina. Here are Daily Faceoff’s takeaways from last week.
Takeover Tour: Did D.C. just secure a team?
After Québec City drew 18,259 fans and Halifax featured a second sold-out crowd of 10,400, the two cities made strong cases for a team as soon as next season. Yet, neither matched the energy of what Washington, D.C. brought to a feisty Takeover Tour game between the Montréal Victoire and New York Sirens this week.
Already home to popular women’s professional sports teams in the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and NWSL’s Washington Spirit, the D.C. crowd showed out for the PWHL, with 17,228 fans in attendance to set the record for the largest women’s hockey crowd in U.S. history.
There’s an evident passion for women’s sports in D.C., and they likely sit atop the PWHL’s expansion wishes now. However, considerations of potential arenas and other challenges could delay immediate expansion. There aren’t many suitably sized rinks in the DMV, and scheduling constraints at Capital One Arena make it challenging to host games there.
With nine Takeover Tour games wrapped, it’s unclear which cities are most poised for teams, but D.C. vaulted itself up to the top potential option on the American side of expansion.
And now, teams will return to primary markets for most of their remaining games, with only seven Takeover Tour matchups still on the schedule. Few teams will take that as better news than the Vancouver Goldeneyes.
The Trade!
Sunday night saw the PWHL’s biggest trade in history, with six players switching teams between the Goldeneyes and Charge in change-of-location moves, which both teams hope can shake off the first-half woes both have dealt with.
Two-time Walter Cup champion Michela Cava is the centerpiece of the trade and will hope to improve on her scoring clip of one goal and five points when she joins Olympic-bound Charge captain, Brianne Jenner on the top line in Canada’s capital.
Brooke McQuigge and defender Emma Greco, who won the final PHF Isobel Cup alongside Cava in 2023 with the Toronto Six, also head to the Charge, while Vancouver acquired forwards Anna Meixner, Mannon McMahon and 2025 second-round pick Anna Shokhina.
On paper, the early winner in this trade is probably Ottawa — they’re two points back of the final Walter Cup playoff spot and have played two games less than last-place Vancouver, and now introduce a perennial winner in Cava.
For Vancouver, it’s all based on generating more chances. Can they muster up anything more, with these new talents and Sarah Nurse back from injury? The playoff dream is starting to fade.
Can Anyone Stop Aerin Frankel’s Run?
The Boston Fleet are starting to run away with the regular-season lead, holding a six-point lead on second-place New York Sirens after regulation wins over the Toronto Sceptres and a shootout victory over the Seattle Torrent in their two games this week.
Yet, while their team has been competitive overall, goaltender Aerin Frankel has been the key to their success. If not for her, the Minnesota Frost, who take up four of the top six scorers in the league, would likely be in first place.
In the two games this week, Frankel turned aside 56 of 58 shots faced and prevailed in a shootout, continuing her immense performance in the crease. After 12 games, she sits with a .950 save percentage, her best mark in that category at any level since having a three-year run of .956, .965 and .958 in her final years with Northeastern University.
With that form, Frankel is putting herself in a position to be the outright top choice for the U.S. at the Olympics, and will hope to carry that form into the post-Olympic run to the postseason.