The closest PWHL playoff races, 2024 to 2025-26

Tightest finishes

1. The Montréal Victoire won the 2025-26 PWHL race over the Boston Fleet on regulation and overtime wins, with seven lead changes, taking first place for good on April 3, 2026.
2. The Montréal Victoire won the 2024-25 PWHL race by 5 points over the Toronto Sceptres, with twelve lead changes, taking first place for good on January 29, 2025.
3. PWHL Toronto won the 2024 PWHL race by 6 points over PWHL Montreal, with eleven lead changes, taking first place for good on April 28, 2024.

Most lead changes

1. The lead in the 2024-25 PWHL race changed hands twelve times, and the Montréal Victoire won it by 5 points over the Toronto Sceptres.
2. The lead in the 2024 PWHL race changed hands eleven times, and PWHL Toronto won it by 6 points over PWHL Montreal.
3. The lead in the 2025-26 PWHL race changed hands seven times, and the Montréal Victoire won it over the Boston Fleet on regulation and overtime wins.

Most days within three points

1. The top two in the 2024-25 PWHL race ended 50 of its 80 playing days within three points of each other, and the Montréal Victoire won it by 5 points over the Toronto Sceptres.
2. The top two in the 2025-26 PWHL race ended 48 of its 77 playing days within three points of each other, and the Montréal Victoire won it over the Boston Fleet on regulation and overtime wins.
3. The top two in the 2024 PWHL race ended 47 of its 51 playing days within three points of each other, and PWHL Toronto won it by 6 points over PWHL Montreal.

How these lists are ranked

Everything on this page comes from the same season files the charts draw, with standings read as each day ended. All 3 charted PWHL races from 3 finished seasons enter: every playoff race from 2024 to 2025-26.

Tightest finishes ranks races by the final gap between first and second place, in points. Ties are broken by how late the winner took first place for good, then by lead changes, then oldest first; a race that finished tied counts as decided on its last day, so races that finished tied are ordered by lead changes and then oldest first. Two teams the standings cannot separate are shown as tied, with no winner named; where the league settled such a race another way, the linked race page tells that story. A margin of zero with a winner named means the race was decided on regulation and overtime wins.

Most lead changes counts a change only when the lead passes to new hands. A team that only catches the leader shares first place but does not take the lead: the lead stays with the team or teams that already held it for as long as any of them is still on top, and passes on the day none of them is, so a tie can never inflate the count. On a finished season's last day, a tie the league broke counts for the team it named, so a team that ends the last day tied with the leader and wins on the league's tiebreak has taken the lead. The count starts on the first day somebody held first place, a day on which every team at the top had played at least once: before that, a team can sit on top, alone or tied with others, without having played a game.

Most days within three points counts the days on which this race's teams played and the top two ended the day within three points of each other, the most a single result can make up. Days a league stood idle (a strike, a pause) are not counted: a frozen gap says nothing about a race.

Only finished seasons are ranked. Seasons shortened by strikes or other stoppages count as played; every irregularity in the record is listed in the data notes.