Hilary Knight, Sarah Nurse among PWHL players exposed to expansion teams
Expansion draft for new teams in Vancouver, Seattle set for Monday at 8:30 p.m. ET
Boston Fleet captain Hilary Knight, original Toronto Sceptres signing Sarah Nurse, and defender of the year nominees Claire Thompson and Sophie Jaques are among the players PWHL Seattle and Vancouver will have the opportunity to add and build around during the expansion process.
Each existing team was allowed to protect three players to start with, and those protection lists became public on Tuesday afternoon. The existing teams will lose four players each throughout the expansion process.
Seattle and Vancouver can begin talking to and signing unprotected players and pending free agents on Wednesday morning, as they build their rosters in preparation to begin play in the fall. Over the five-day window, Seattle and Vancouver can each sign as many as five players.
The expansion draft is set for Monday at 8:30 p.m. ET. Seattle and Vancouver will end the process with 12 players each.
Only three goaltenders were protected during the process: Boston's Aerin Frankel, Montreal's Ann-Renée Desbiens and Ottawa's Gwyneth Philips, who was named the playoff MVP. All three are nominated for the league's goaltender of the year award.
Many teams prioritized veteran leadership. The Minnesota Frost, for example, protected both the team's captain, Kendall Coyne Schofield, and assistant captain, Lee Stecklein, in lieu of players like Thompson and Jaques. Forward Taylor Heise was also protected by the Frost.
WATCH | How the PWHL's expansion process will work:
For the Frost, it was a quick transition from last week's Walter Cup celebration to having to make a difficult decision.
"Over the last two seasons, a foundation and culture has been established within our organization that we feel these three players, in addition to their skill and ability on the ice, embody, and will continue to uphold as leaders on and off the ice as we move forward into season three," Frost GM Melissa Caruso said on Tuesday.
"Additionally, they are all proven winners whose experience will be invaluable as we evolve toward the next phase of the Minnesota Frost."
Other teams prioritized top defenders, knowing those are at a premium. The New York Sirens, for example, exposed Alex Carpenter, the second-highest scoring forward on the team, in lieu of protecting defenders Ella Shelton and Micah Zandee-Hart. The Sirens also protected rookie Sarah Fillier, who is a restricted free agent.
After an existing team loses two players to Seattle or Vancouver, a fourth can be protected.
Notable omissions
Other top players up for grabs by Seattle and Vancouver include Montreal Victoire defenders Erin Ambrose and Cayla Barnes, Sirens forward Jessie Eldridge, Ottawa's Brianne Jenner and Emerance Maschmeyer, and veteran Frost forward Kelly Pannek, who is always reliable in the faceoff circle.
With every team set to lose key pieces of their rosters, expansion should be a league-wide reset.
"The situation that we're in right now with the league is there could be more expansion," Caruso said on Monday. "So it's almost like we're planning for very short periods of time right now, knowing that we're going to be experiencing change again coming up in the next couple of couple of years."
For Seattle and Vancouver, it will be a chance to build teams that can be competitive from the beginning.
That was a goal for a league that has always prioritized parity, where any team can win on any day. The league spent months coming up with the expansion rules, the PWHL's executive vice president of hockey operations, Jayna Hefford, said last month.
"It was really critical that we got it right because decisions like this do shape the future of the league," Hefford said. "For us, the priority is always about competitive balance."
Finding the right pieces for the puzzle
In Seattle and Vancouver, newly-minted general managers Meghan Turner and Cara Gardner Morey will have lots of talent to pick from. But it won't be as easy as picking a roster of all stars.
They'll also have to consider how much each player makes and how long they're under contract.
"If we could just get every player we wanted, obviously we would," said Turner, who was Boston's assistant general manager over the last two seasons. "But the salary cap adds an element of complexity."
Beyond dollars and skill, they also have to sketch out what kind of team they'd like to build and whether each player fits into that picture.
Last week, Turner said she'd be looking for players who fit with the culture she's trying to create, first and foremost. She'd like good leaders to build around and players who buy into her vision.
"In this league, there's not a lot of time for players to possess the puck often because it's so fast," she said. "I really want to lean into being able to create a team that has speed and can create speed out of the [defensive] zone through the neutral zone."
In Vancouver, Gardner Morey has a vision of a team with a competitive culture, and one that loves to engage with the community.
"On the ice, I envision a team that plays with speed, has a ton of skill, loves the physicality, and again, is competing right off day one," said the GM, who spent years recruiting players as head coach of Princeton University's women's hockey team.
The protection lists
- Boston Fleet (3): Aerin Frankel (G), Megan Keller (D), Alina Müller (F).
- Minnesota Frost (3): Kendall Coyne Schofield (F), Taylor Heise (F), Lee Stecklein (D).
- Montréal Victoire (3): Ann-Renée Desbiens (G), Marie-Philip Poulin (F), Laura Stacey (F).
- New York Sirens (3): Sarah Fillier (F), Ella Shelton (D), Micah Zandee-Hart (D).
- Ottawa Charge (3): Emily Clark (F), Gwyneth Philips (G), Ronja Savolainen (D).
- Toronto Sceptres (3): Renata Fast (D), Blayre Turnbull (F), Daryl Watts (F).
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