The PWHL’s most effective defender in 2024–25 wore a Minnesota Frost jersey—she might not be who you think it is

As one does soon after season’s end with no more hockey to watch, I was poking around the PWHL’s regular season statistics (specifically through Kyle Cushman’s PWHL Master Spreadsheet, an incredible resource that has pretty much any info on the league you could ever want).

One column in particular caught my attention, that being five-on-five goals for percentage (GF%): the percentage of goals that go in favour of a given player’s team while they’re on the ice at even strength. Taking both zones into account in the most common game state, it’s a solid indicator of a player’s contribution to their team’s success.

Filtering the list to only defenders, the names in the upper echelon make a lot of sense. Former Defender of the Year Erin Ambrose and breakout rookie Anna Wilgren from the league-leading Victoire, the underrated Charge duo of Ronja Savolainen and Aneta Tejralová, and another quietly effective contributor in the Fleet’s Jess DiGirolamo. Sophie Jaques, who would be my pick for this year’s award, sits at a sparkling 68.3%, yet only secures second place behind one of her teammates. Again, somewhat understandable, given the Frost’s three-headed monster of Jaques, Lee Stecklein, and Claire Thompson on the blueline. Surely one of the latter two beat her out?

…One of the latter two beat her out, right?

Mae Batherson. A sixth-round pick of Minnesota in 2024, a ten-time healthy scratch in the regular season and playoffs combined, and the owner of the PWHL’s highest GF% among qualified defenders at 70.8%. With two teammates atop the leaderboard like this, it would follow that Batherson played sheltered minutes alongside the contender for the league’s top blueliner, whose case would be strengthened by carrying a rookie to those heights.Was it as simple as Jaques and Batherson clicking together at five-on-five to the point where they became the best pairing in the league?

Linemate data and analysis

This is where Erin/greenmouse-27 comes in. She put together a handy tool that, in addition to serving as a repository for all PWHL teams’ starting lineups in 2024–25, allows you to search for a specific player’s linemates. In other words, exactly what I needed to try to answer this question. Erin also did a bunch of the legwork in combing through individual games for this, and they’re honestly the reason this piece’s publication date isn’t two weeks later than it is.

With that said, here’s a list of Minnesota Frost defenders, their on-ice goals for/against and GF% in parentheses, sorted by the number of times they were put alongside Batherson (17/7, 70.8%) on the lineup graphic.

• Claire Thompson: 9 (20/23, 46.5%)
• Lee Stecklein: 7 (16/18, 47.1%)
• Maggie Flaherty: 6 (8/13, 38.1%)
• Natalie Buchbinder: 2 (7/11, 38.9%)
• Mellissa Channell-Watkins: 1 (19/14, 57.6%)
• Sophie Jaques: 0 (28/13, 68.3%)

Welcome to the point of no return from this rabbit hole for me. Not only was Batherson never listed with Jaques, she rarely played with the only other blueliner to maintain a positive ratio in Channell-Watkins.

With her linemate data failing to provide an explanation for this anomaly, in fact arguably making it even more baffling, the next course of action was to go through Minnesota’s season game-by-game in an attempt to locate a discrepancy between their lineups and what actually played out on the ice. Did the Frost constantly juggle their defence pairs as games went on? Did Batherson simply just elevate everyone she played with even accounting for their below-average totals? Did Minnesota decide to deploy four forwards with Batherson the sole defender?

Somehow, the last one is more likely than you may expect.

Notable games

December 7th, 2024 (6–3 W @ Toronto)

After two consecutive healthy scratches to begin the season Batherson drew into the lineup thanks to a suspension issued to Flaherty, lining up alongside Stecklein in her PWHL debut.

The two were on the ice in a tie game in the third, with Stecklein winning a board battle behind her own net to break the puck out. Batherson jumped up in the rush but the puck found the back of the net without finding her.

The second defender was the last one to make it to the celebratory huddle, and that defender was… Thompson? Yes, Stecklein went for a line change behind the play, leaving Batherson and Thompson as the two on the ice for the game-winning goal.

December 19th, 2024 (5–2 W v Ottawa)

In her first home game, Batherson was again paired with Stecklein to start the night, but the veteran found herself on the ice with Thompson while protecting a 3–2 lead.

Again, Stecklein came up with the puck in her own end, breaking it up to her teammates before going for a change. Thompson promptly sniped it past Gwyneth Philips for her first career goal and third point of an eventual four on the game, and the fellow blueliner to join her in celebration was, of course, Batherson.

January 15th, 2025 (3–2 SOL @ New York)

After an up-and-down stretch of three consecutive games with Batherson on the ice for both goals for and against alongside Stecklein, this was amidst the first of two stints lining up next to Thompson.

The rookie was present for both of Minnesota’s two goals in this contest, but their second was scored by Channell-Watkins who is, notably, not Claire Thompson. A partial line change was once again to blame for this outcome, as with Batherson supporting deep in the Sirens’ end, Channell-Watkins stepped into a slap shot right from the bench after replacing Thompson.

February 11th, 2025 (3–2 OTL @ Toronto)

The aforementioned two stints with Thompson bookended Batherson’s stretch playing next to Flaherty, yet Jaques was somehow alongside her for both a Frost and Sceptres goal in this one. Batherson was once again the beneficiary of a fortunately-timed line change, as she had just stepped on for Channell-Watkins as Jaques went bar-down on the game’s first shot.

For the first time in this analysis, though, the second period long change would come into play. With the left-shot Batherson on the right side next to Flaherty, she was unable to get to the bench at the same time as her partner, who exchanged herself for Jaques.

Stuck out on the ice for over a minute, Batherson was left scrambling as Hannah Miller (ironically one of only two forwards with a higher GF% than Batherson) cashed in a loose puck for Toronto’s first.

February 13th, 2025 (8–3 L @ Ottawa)

No, that is not a typo, Mae Batherson was indeed a +2 in an 8–3 loss. Her partner in this game, once again Flaherty, was the only other defender to break even, much less go positive. What the hell happened here?

Batherson and Flaherty were the defence pairing on the ice for Michela Cava’s first period goal but the two would differentiate on a couple of plays later in the contest, both of them again involving Jaques. Flaherty was thrown right into the fire from a partial change, coming on for Channell-Watkins with Jaques up in the play and Victoria Bach storming the other way to snipe in Ottawa’s sixth.

Meanwhile, the third period brought the first instance of an apparent mid-game line shuffle, as Batherson and Jaques played an extended shift together late in an 8–2 game. The latter picked the far corner on Emerance Maschmeyer to cut the deficit to five with just two minutes remaining, and put a stamp on the former’s strangely successful night.

February 18th, 2025 (4–0 W @ Montréal)

This game would initially look to be in the clear in terms of unforeseen circumstances. Batherson played with Thompson, was on the ice for one goal for alongside Thompson, and even recorded an assist in doing so.

The problem arises when seeing that the pair was there for Liz Schepers’ opening goal of the first period, yet Batherson’s assist came on the first of two third-period Denisa Křížová markers.

Indeed, the rookie defender sent Dominique Petrie in on a two-on-one with Křížová before heading right to the bench, completing a change with Stecklein mere seconds before the Czech forward tapped the puck in the net to bring the score to 3–0. You’re telling me Batherson’s GF% could have been even better than it already is?

March 7th, 2025 (5–0 W @ v Ottawa)

Batherson returns to the ice following her first healthy scratch since December, but Křížová returns to the figurative scene of the crime. She’s once again made it 3–0 in her team’s favour, this time giving Maschmeyer the hook by just the first intermission. The PWHL website lists the players on the ice for the goal as follows:

• #9 Mae Batherson
• #12 Kelly Pannek
• #14 Dominique Petrie
• #26 Kendall Coyne Schofield
• #41 Denisa Křížová

For those keeping score at home, that’s four forwards alongside Batherson. Not even shenanigans with the No Escape Rule can explain this one away, as Minnesota didn’t take a penalty in the first period. Anticlimactically though, it’s merely an error in the records, as Pannek was nowhere to be found on the play with Batherson’s listed partner Thompson being the true fifth skater. Chalk one more up on her goals for total, I guess.

What can explain Batherson’s success?

It’s clear by the third Frost goal in the midst of a line change that some degree of luck factored in to Batherson’s league-high GF% score among defenders. Given the surprising nature of the statistic in the first place, it would be a fair assumption even without digging deeper into it. Yet, even omitting each one of those oddities would only drop her number to 65%, good for third in the PWHL behind Jaques and Savolainen.

Further, this doesn’t consider her assist that she wasn’t on the ice for, nor the inevitability that the same situations will occur with any other player on any other team in the league. Hockey’s a fast-paced sport, and these things will undeniably happen over the course of a season.

What’s also undeniable is that Mae Batherson had a positive impact, sometimes overwhelmingly so, on just about everyone she played with. Here’s the same list of Frost defenders alongside their GF% without Batherson, with how much it changed from their overall total in parentheses.

• Claire Thompson: 39.3% (↓ 6.2%)
• Lee Stecklein: 46.4% (↓ 0.7%)
• Maggie Flaherty: 27.8% (↓ 10.3%)
• Natalie Buchbinder: 35.3% (↓ 3.6%)
• Mellissa Channell-Watkins: 56.3% (↓ 1.3%)
• Sophie Jaques: 68.4% (↑ 0.1%)

Does this make Batherson the best defender in the PWHL, as the title somewhat implies? No, absolutely not. However, that she shouldn’t have been scratched at all, much less as often as she was, can be said with the same certainty.

All’s well that ends well, as Batherson finished the season a Walter Cup champion, but she deserved to contribute more to Minnesota’s playoff run than just 20:49 over three games, including a grand total of 0:00 in the PWHL Finals. With Batherson a restricted free agent and Jaques and Thompson off to Vancouver in the expansion draft, whether or not coach Ken Klee realizes what he has in Batherson could be season-defining for the Frost in 2025–26.