The PWHL's best new rule lets you bat the puck out of the air
Mandatory neck guards, legal high sticks, a defined checking rule and a penalty-shot overtime test headline the 2026-27 rulebook.
The PWHL just made its rulebook smarter in three places and braver in one. The best change is the one nobody will notice until it saves a goal: you can bat a puck out of the air now, and the play keeps going.
The league released its 2026-27 rulebook on Thursday, a month before the Dec. 5 opener. Here's what changed, and what I'd do with it.
Neck guards, finally
Rule 9.10 makes cut-resistant neck protection mandatory for every player, goalies included, in every game and every warm-up. The minimum is an A4 rating under the ANSI/ISEA standard, with A5 preferred. Last season's rulebook only "strongly recommended" it.
Strongly recommended was never going to be enough. The NHL is phasing its requirement in. The PWHL is doing it now, for everyone, and that's the right call for a league that likes to be first.
The high stick is legal
Under the new Rule 82, a player can bat the puck above her shoulders without a whistle. If either team gains control, the referee signals a washout and play goes on. Cradling the puck on the stick up high is legal too. The one exception: on a penalty shot or a shootout attempt, a high bat ends the shot.
This is the change I like most. A puck knocked down in the neutral zone used to kill a rush for a faceoff nobody wanted. Now the skilled player who can glove-and-stick it out of the air gets rewarded. The WCHA tried a version of this before last season, so it has a college track record, not just a whiteboard.
Body checking, defined
The old body-checking rule leaned on "opposite-directional force," which is the kind of phrase that starts arguments on the bench.
The new Rule 52 lists what's allowed: checks to win or play the puck, body position to separate an opponent from it, contact with a stationary player. It also lists what isn't: blindside hits on a defenseless player, leaving the feet, driving an arm up, skating into someone with excessive force.
The other piece matters for players. A body-checking major used to bring an automatic game misconduct. Now that only happens when the check injures someone.
The overtime experiment
Here's the fun one. In all 12 preseason scrimmages, a team that draws a minor in overtime can choose a penalty shot instead of the 4-on-3. Any eligible player on the roster can take it. Every scrimmage also gets 3-on-3 overtime and a shootout, whatever the score.
It's preseason only for now. It shouldn't stay there.
The number I'd watch
By our count, the league cut 17 officials from last season's 59, down to 42: 21 referees and 21 linespersons, 22 women and 20 men. That's about 29 percent fewer officials enforcing a longer, more detailed checking rule.
Jayna Hefford, the league's executive vice president of hockey operations, said "player safety and innovation have been at our forefront since the league's inception," and the rulebook backs her up. The staffing is the part to watch in December.
The W read: The penalty-shot option is in the regular-season rulebook by 2027-28, and the first real fight over the new checking language comes before Christmas. The high stick will just quietly make the game better.
