PWHL players, GMs waiting to hear how expansion draft will affect existing teams
Expansion draft will help build PWHL Vancouver and Seattle, who begin play next season
In the next month, the new Professional Women's Hockey League teams in Vancouver and Seattle will start to fill out their rosters.
The teams, who begin play next season, will select players at the entry draft set for June 24 in Ottawa, and will also have the chance to add players from other teams in an expansion draft that will happen at some point before the entry draft. The league is in the process of hiring general managers for the Vancouver and Seattle teams.
With the clock ticking, much remains unknown about that expansion draft, including how many players each team will have to expose and who can be protected.
That has been weighing on players, especially those who are signed to contracts next season and could find themselves on the move, according to New York Sirens captain Micah Zandee-Hart.
She is New York's representative with the league's players' association (PWHLPA), and said she's been getting texts from players who are eager for information.
"As much as that's exciting, I think it also brings a lot of unknown to the players and kind of wondering what's going to happen and when it's going to happen," Zandee-Hart told CBC Sports.
More than 20 markets showed interest in becoming home to a PWHL team during an expansion process that lasted several months. League officials looked at economic opportunity, youth hockey, infrastructure and geography, among other things.
The league ultimately chose to expand its footprint west as it looks to attract a national U.S. broadcast rights deal. Expansion to Vancouver and Seattle was confirmed in April.
A league spokesperson didn't have any new details to share on the expansion draft process on Tuesday.
"The expectation is that any new teams that enter the league would be competitive in year one," Jayna Hefford, the league's executive vice president of hockey operations, said in April. "That's the priority as we look at how we would disperse players."
'It's what we wanted in our sport'
Zandee-Hart, who is from Saanichton, B.C., is excited about the impact a PWHL team could have on a growing girls' and women's hockey community in her home province, especially for young players who will have the chance to interact with pros.
She had to leave home young to pursue her hockey dreams, accepting that opportunities in her sport were always going to take her east.
"I actually remember feeling a bit emotional just because I think growing up on the west coast, I had always told myself that that was just never gonna be something that happened in my lifetime in hockey," she said.
While Zandee-Hart was the first B.C.-born player to make Canada's women's Olympic hockey team, there are several up-and-coming players from the province.
The expansion also means at least 46 more jobs in the league. That could create opportunity for players who have had to go to Europe to find playing time or who have been part of the PWHL on a team's reserve list, where players aren't entitled to full salaries and the same benefits as players signed to full contracts.
"As kind of maybe scary as expansion is for some players or as uncertain as it is, it is what we wanted in our sport," Zandee-Hart said. "We wanted to continue to grow the sport. We wanted to increase the viewership."
GMs need to be 'open minded' with rosters in flux
Players aren't the only ones waiting for more details.
Boston Fleet GM Danielle Marmer is looking for puck-moving defence and depth scoring this off-season, after her team just missed out on a playoff spot by a tiebreaker.
She said last week that she's not yet sure how expansion could affect her roster.
"I think these conversations are happening between the league and the players' association," she said.
The Fleet finished second-last in the six-team league. But because they were eliminated from playoff contention on the final day of the regular season, the Fleet didn't earn any Gold points. They're earned by winning games after being eliminated, and meant to discourage teams from "tanking" for the top draft pick.
Based on the 2024 draft rules, the Fleet would pick second in the entry draft order. But it's not clear where the Fleet will select this year, given the expansion teams will also be picking in the draft.
But Sirens GM Pascal Daoust also didn't have details about the expansion draft on Monday. He described having 10 to 12 different scenarios that could play out for his team this off-season, depending on what happens.
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"The minute we're going to have all the [expansion draft] rules, then the next question will be, how can we build the best team not only for the coming season but years to come." Daoust said.
One benefit? The teams across the league are so even that everyone is set to lose good players due to expansion.
"To be honest, I would love to have an answer, a final strategy," Daoust said. "We need to be open-minded. We need to cover all the angles, and that's why we're going to have to sit staff together and find what are the angles we need to cover before we sit at that table."
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