Bird on Ice

1. nicole & julia gosling (baby geese)

2. hannah brandt (brant)

3. nicole hensley ("hens" in the name)

4. brooke becker (brOOke -> wOOd + becker -> pecker = woodpecker)

5. ella shelton (shelduck)

6. maddi wheeler (wheatear)

7. natalie spooner (spoonbill)

If you haven't sat down and beat your head against the PWHL expansion rules, I don't blame you (they're complex), but the official rules book notes a few things about who can be offered what in the first expansion signings phase, which starts tomorrow (June 4).

If you're worried about a specific unprotected player on your favorite team, they may not be as exposed as you think.

Those big fancy contracts, the EFOs and FPOs? Can only be offered to players on expiring contracts who DO NOT have their rights held for next season.

If the player you're worried about is signed for 2026-2027, or has their rights held for that season (meaning that team has first dibs, basically), they have the right to turn down a contract offered by an expansion team. Players like Bilka, Barnes, N. Gosling, and Müller are all signed; players like Kadirova and Newhook have their rights held for the upcoming season. They can still get really good offers, and probably will, but cannot get the offer they can't refuse.

If you're worried about an expansion team offering oodles of money, remember the salary cap exists--they may not be able to tempt certain unprotected signed players away via a major raise and still afford to pay the rest of the team (see Alina Müller as Exhibit A, she's already making $95k).

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(Nothing is perfectly safe, of course; if an expansion team does badly enough in the unprotected expiring-contract player pool that they don't have 5 signed players by the deadline on June 8, then it gets a bit dicier for signed/rights-held players, as they're now the available pool to get selected from. Personal opinion, I'm less worried about that, since there are well over 20 good players on expiring contracts who were not protected.

Your 25/26 Boston Fleet!!