When teams face off against PWHL New York next season, they face the prospect of having to try to match two offensive threats down the middle.
First, there’s Alex Carpenter, who is a risk to score from anywhere on the ice.
Coming over the boards next could be first-overall pick Sarah Fillier, a player with offensive creativity in spades. She’s scored at every level she’s played at, including on the international stage with the Canadian national team.
“She’s played already against the best in the world, with the best in the world,” New York GM Pascal Daoust told reporters after selecting Fillier with the first pick in the 2024 PWHL Draft in Minnesota on Monday night. “She’s always outstanding facing them or playing with them.”
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Every team in the six-team league got better at Monday’s draft, which saw 42 players selected from seven different countries. The majority of those players came from college, but teams also stocked up on veteran talent from Europe.
Next on the off-season calendar is free agency on June 21. Here’s how all six teams look after the draft:
Ottawa
Watching the players who had the most success in season one, Ottawa GM Mike Hirshfeld went into his second draft with two goals: get tougher and gritter, and add size. He checked both boxes within the first two picks.
Ottawa selected Edmonton’s Danielle Serdachny second overall, adding a play-making power forward who should be able to contribute in the PWHL immediately.
Serdachny, who scored the golden goal at the world championship for Team Canada this past spring, should bring the competitiveness and grit that Hirshfeld was after.
On the blue line, Ottawa added 26-year-old Finnish defender Ronja Savolainen from the Swedish Women’s Hockey League (SDHL) in the second round, adding some size and more mobility.
Ottawa seems set on defence with five players under contract and three more drafted on Monday. The biggest priority over the next week will be trying to re-sign two-thirds of its best line last season: forwards Daryl Watts and Kateřina Mrázová.
While Ottawa has offered a contract extension to back-up goalie Sandra Abstreiter, Hirshfeld also drafted Northeastern University’s Gwyneth Philips. Starter Emerance Maschmeyer had one of the biggest workloads in the league last season, and Philips could challenge for some games.
Toronto
The biggest question mark for Toronto is whether Natalie Spooner, the winner of both forward of the year and the Billie Jean King MVP Award, will be ready to start next season. Spooner had surgery after suffering a knee injury during the playoffs.
While Toronto hopes to see Spooner back soon, GM Gina Kingsbury drafted a player in the first round who can bring a lot of similar elements.
London, Ont.’s Julia Gosling brings size and the ability to drive the net, skills that helped Spooner put up more goals and points than anyone else last season.
Gosling skated with Spooner last summer and even brought Spooner ice cream after her surgery last week.
Spooner sees Gosling as someone who can play the net front role well.
“She’s got a better shot than I have,” she said.
Toronto drafted another Ontarian in Milton, Ont.’s Megan Carter, a defender who Kingsbury described as a “steal.” She thinks she will be able to play in the league like a veteran right away.
Forward Izzy Daniel, winner of the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best female player in college hockey last season, went to Toronto in the third round. Daniel excels at finding ways to create space for herself, smarts that could help her transition quickly to the pro game, Kingsbury said.
Montreal
Montreal’s biggest off-season need was a top defender, and that’s exactly what Montreal got in the first round with Cayla Barnes.
She’s only 25 but is already a veteran on the U.S. national team, having won a gold medal in 2018. She also won a national championship with Ohio State University this past season, a game that was fresh in Montreal GM Danièle Sauvageau’s mind heading into the draft.
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Cayla Barnes and Jennifer Gardiner, who won an NCAA title as Ohio State teammates, were elated to both be selected by Montreal at the 2024 PWHL draft.
“I think she’s going to have such a huge impact right away,” said Montreal defender Erin Ambrose, who was named defender of the year on Tuesday.
But Montreal’s biggest win of the day might have come a few hours before the draft started. The team announced it had its 15th-round pick from last season, Swedish forward Lina Ljungblom, to a three-year contract.
Ljungblom wasn’t able to come to North America this past season because of an existing contract in Sweden. Her head coach at MoDo Hockey, Jared Cipparone, told CBC Sports earlier this year that Ljungblom has always been a scorer, but her play away from the puck has improved this season.
It feels like there are a few candidates to fill a hole in the top six, from Ljungblom, to third-round pick Abby Boreen, who played a top-six role in Minnesota on reserve last season, to Team USA veteran Amanda Kessel, should she play for Montreal.
New York
Beyond Fillier, Daoust felt he added more physicality on his blue line, starting with Swedish defender Maja Nylén Persson, who went in the second round.
Daoust also added the Swedish Women’s Hockey League’s leading scorer last season, Finnish veteran Noora Tulus, and the only U Sports player taken in the draft, Concordia University captain Emmy Fecteau, to his forward ranks.
Both players bring experience winning, with Tulus a champion in the Swedish league, and Fecteau at the national university level.
Beyond the draft, the team checked off one of its biggest off-season to-do list items on Tuesday, re-signing goaltender of the year nominee Corinne Schroeder to a two-year deal.
Boston
Boston struggled to score goals this season and finished with the worst power play in the league. Fourth-overall pick Hannah Bilka should help.
Having Bilka on the ice to win pucks back may help create opportunities for some of Boston’s other players, too, Marmer said.
“We’ve got so many talented goal scorers on our team, and now we have the player to get them the puck,” she said.
Also high on Marmer’s checklist was a puck-mover on defence who can skate well. Boston swapped picks with New York to move up in the draft and select Czech defender Daniela Pejšová with the seventh-overall pick.
Minnesota
Minnesota left the draft with the best offensive defender available in Claire Thompson, who was selected third overall.
Thompson didn’t play last season while attending medical school, and would otherwise be a lock on the Canadian national team. She set a new record for points by a defender at the Olympics in 2022.
She joins a blue line that’s already got offensive defender Sophie Jaques and Lee Stecklein, who is one of the best shutdown defenders in the world.
Minnesota added another top-six forward in the Team USA’s Britta Curl at the draft, but attracted some controversy in the process, due to anti-LGBTQ+ posts Curl has interacted with on social media.
Head coach Ken Klee ran the draft in place of GM Natalie Darwitz, who departed the team last week. Klee said he did his homework on Curl, talking to former coaches and teammates who endorsed her.
Asked whether he spoke to anyone from the LGBTQ community, including players on his team, prior to making the pick, Klee struggled to answer the question.
“At the end of the day, I was told she’s a great teammate, a great person and she’s obviously a great player,” he said.