3.5: Best core (DET). 4.1-5.6: Established-team cores. 3/4: New cores with sub-replacement G. 10: Players in each core (of ~23) The PWHL doubled its expansion footprint for 2026-27: Detroit, Hamilton, Las Vegas, and San Jose each built a ten-player core by signing players out of the eight existing teams. The rest of each roster, the back half and the entry-draft rookies, gets filled before the season. So we cannot project a full team yet. We can project the part they have already chosen, the signed core, by running it through our next-season WAR model and adding it up. That tells us who laid the best foundation, and it comes with three honest asterisks we will not bury. The asterisks first. One, this is a core, not a team: ten of roughly twenty-three spots, with the missing depth and the rookies left out (and those will pull the full team down toward replacement level). Two, every projection here was earned somewhere else. A player's value is partly her old linemates, deployment, and team; drop her onto a brand-new club with weaker support and tougher minutes and she will most likely produce less than her number says. Read these as optimistic ceilings for the core, not forecasts. Three, goaltending WAR is noisy, and as you will see it is also where these teams live or die. The cores, and the gap Here is each new core's summed projected WAR, split into forwards, defense, and goaltending, against the shaded range of the eight established teams' cores. The headline is the distance. The best new core, DET at 3.5, still sits below the weakest incumbent ( SEA at 4.1), and that is before accounting for the thinner depth behind it. Expansion teams are usually bottom-of-the-league in year one, and the model agrees. Treat the bar as a ceiling and the bracket on it as the honest range. Because these players move to weaker teams and harder minutes, knock the portable value down by 10 to 20 percent and the best new core lands around 2.8 to 3.1, the weakest around 2.0 to 2.2. Either way the gap to the established cores does not close; the discount only widens it. Team by team DET built the strongest core , and the most balanced read on the four is less about who got the biggest names than who got a goalie. Three of the four signed goaltending that projects below replacement, and the fourth is leaning on an unproven draft pick. In a low-scoring league where goaltending is the most repeatable thing on the ice, that is the common thread and the common risk. Detroit (3.5 core WAR: 2.6 F, 0.9 D, +0.0 G) . Top signings: Daryl Watts (+0.69), Britta Curl-Salemme (+0.58), Jesse Compher (+0.34), Shiann Darkangelo (+0.34). Their crease is a question: no signed goalie projects above replacement, and the net likely falls to draftee Andrea Brändli.. Las Vegas (2.9 core WAR: 1.8 F, 1.6 D, -0.5 G) . Top signings: Kendall Cooper (+0.55), Hilary Knight (+0.47), Mae Batherson (+0.44), Erin Ambrose (+0.41). Their signed goaltending projects below replacement (-0.5 WAR), the core's biggest hole.. San Jose (2.6 core WAR: 1.9 F, 0.8 D, -0.1 G) . Top signings: Anne Cherkowski (+0.53), Rory Guilday (+0.44), Mariah Keopple (+0.40), Natalie Mlynkova (+0.35). Their crease is a question: no signed goalie projects above replacement, and the net likely falls to draftee Tia Chan.. Hamilton (2.5 core WAR: 1.7 F, 1.4 D, -0.6 G) . Top signings: Nicole Gosling (+0.80), Allyson Simpson (+0.58), Brianne Jenner (+0.54), Emily Clark (+0.36). Their signed goaltending projects below replacement (-0.6 WAR), the core's biggest hole. The cautionary tale is HAM . It signed genuine stars up front, the kind of names that win a press conference, yet it grades out last of the four because the goal it conceded back is real: a -0.6 WAR goaltending projection drags a respectable skater group down to the bottom. It is the same lesson our goaltending read kept finding. You can stack forwards all day; if the net leaks, it does not matter. What this read isn't Not a full-team forecast. It is the signed ten-player core. The other half of each roster, including the entry-draft rookies who have no PWHL track record, is not in these numbers, and it will be below this core's average.. An optimistic ceiling. Each player's projection was built on her old team's usage and linemates. On a weaker new team with tougher minutes, most will produce less, so summing old-context value over-states what these cores will be worth together. The on-ice impact part is already opponent-adjusted, so the over-statement is mostly in the box-score scoring; the 10-to-20 percent band above is our honest haircut for it, not a precise discount.. Goaltending WAR is noisy. The single number that most separates these cores is also the least stable. Treat the goaltending grades as a flag, not a verdict, but note that none of the four clearly secured a starter.. WAR is our model. Projected WAR blends three seasons with an aging curve and shrinkage; it is a defensible estimate of value, not a fact, and chemistry and coaching sit outside it entirely. Methodology Core WAR. The sum of projected next-season WAR over the ten players each expansion club signed, by position. Projected WAR is a three-season recency-weighted value blend with a position aging curve and sample-size shrinkage.. The reference band. Each established team's core is its ten highest projected-WAR players, so the comparison is strictly ten-versus-ten, core to core, not core to full roster.. A note on the unit. Our "WAR" projection is a value-above-replacement number built from per-game Game Score, not literal wins calibrated to the standings; it is the same value scale the rest of the site uses. The on-ice impact slice is opponent- and teammate-adjusted via RAPM, but the box-score slice (goals, assists, shots) is not, so the new-team context discount below applies mostly to the box-score half.. Numbers regenerate on every build. A WAR recalibration or a new signing reshapes the bars; as the new teams add players, this projection should be re-run. This closes the loop on our expansion coverage: the protection simulator before the fact, the post-mortem on who was actually signed, and now a first look at what those signings are worth.