Sarah Fillier is a bit nervous.
During the last six years enjoying at Princeton College and for Canada’s nationwide ladies’s hockey workforce, Fillier has had her life mapped out. However as she approaches her twenty fourth birthday on Sunday, Fillier is not certain the place she’ll be residing within the fall.
That reply will come on Monday, when Fillier is chosen within the 2024 PWHL draft in Minnesota.
Most anticipate she’ll be packing her luggage for New York, which owns the first-overall draft choose.
Fillier has discovered a strategy to rating at each stage, from the NCAA to the worldwide stage, the place she was the MVP of the 2023 Girls’s World Championship. She’s received three world championships and an Olympic gold medal whereas sporting the maple leaf, and is now poised to turn into a face of the PWHL.
“She’s a winner,” stated Toronto GM Gina Kingsbury, who can also be Workforce Canada’s GM.
“She needs to attain. She needs the strain. She needs to be the perfect athlete on this planet.”
WATCH | Previewing the 2024 PWHL draft on CBC Sports activities’ Hockey North:
Host Rob Pizzo is joined by CBC Sports activities reporter Karissa Donkin to interrupt down all the things you have to know forward of Monday night time’s draft.
Fillier leads a bunch of greater than 160 gamers who’re eligible to be chosen. Declaring for the draft is the one strategy to play within the PWHL, which implies it is the entry level each for younger expertise coming from faculty and college, and for veteran gamers who’d like to come back to North America from Europe.
The seven-round draft begins at 7 p.m. ET on Monday and might be broadcast on the PWHL’s YouTube channel.
Ottawa picks second after New York, adopted by Minnesota, Boston, Montreal and Toronto. The order will repeat over every spherical.
This is a have a look at what every workforce wants going into the draft, and a prospect who may fill that want:
New York
After an inconsistent season, GM Pascal Daoust stated final month that he is on the lookout for a participant who will compete for 60 minutes each night time.
Enter Fillier, who has spent years absorbing classes on work ethic from Canadian teammates Brianne Jenner and Marie-Philip Poulin, specializing in how they’re at all times making an attempt to get higher.
She may slot behind Alex Carpenter as New York’s second-line centre and pressure opposing groups to discover a strategy to match each of them. Or Fillier may play on the wing, a place she’s realized over the previous couple of months, and see if she will use her hockey IQ to create magic with Carpenter, among the best shooters within the recreation.
It is within the latter function that Fillier has discovered a strategy to open herself as much as create offence off the frenzy.
“It is made me higher at each positions, particularly breaking out and understanding the place persons are going to be and the place the perfect place to place the puck for folks is,” Fillier stated.
She plans to spend her summer season engaged on her puck safety, one thing she thinks might be key to face up to the elevated physicality of professional hockey.
Ottawa
At second total, Hirshfeld stated he is on the lookout for a “generational” participant who will be with the workforce for the following three years.
“We’re on the lookout for somebody who brings a ton of expertise to the ice and may proceed to develop, but additionally is a good individual,” the GM stated.
He additionally needs to get harder and grittier to play in opposition to subsequent season. Assuming Fillier goes first, Colgate College ahead Danielle Serdachny may verify all these containers.
She would give Ottawa three strong centre choices with Gabbie Hughes and, assuming she is re-signed, Kateřina Mrázová.
A lot of the forwards who had success within the PWHL final season have been in a position to maintain their very own in entrance of the online, and that is one thing Serdachny ought to have the ability to do, given her measurement and skating capability. She additionally has a great shot and confidence to shoot, scoring the golden purpose for Workforce Canada on the world championship in April.
Minnesota
Reigning Walter Cup-champion Minnesota is a workforce that thrives on talent and velocity, with gamers like Taylor Heise, Kendall Coyne Schofield and Grace Zumwinkle locked up for an additional two years.
Including left wing Hannah Bilka (Ohio State College) may make Minnesota’s top-six scary.
“She’s fast, she’s quick, she’s sporadic,” stated defender Cayla Barnes, Bilka’s faculty teammate.
“You recognize you may get a number of creativity out of her and you already know she will put the puck within the internet. She’s an excellent particular participant. She works actually onerous and any workforce could be tremendous fortunate to have her.”
Minnesota may additionally go for a veteran in ahead Amanda Kessel, reuniting her with a number of Workforce USA teammates together with Heise, who she performed properly with on the world championship in 2022.
Boston
Boston’s largest drawback final season was scoring objectives.
Barnes could possibly be an ideal match alongside Megan Keller on the blueline, and will add one other puck mover to an influence play that struggled mightily.
Barnes is not the most important participant however is a gradual defender. She has a ton of expertise, having received an Olympic gold medal with Workforce USA in 2018 at solely 19.
Boston may add extra offence up entrance by means of free company or within the second spherical, the place Kessel or Izzy Daniel may nonetheless be accessible. Daniel received the Patty Kazmaier Award as the perfect participant in feminine faculty hockey final season with Cornell College, placing up 59 factors in 34 video games.
Montreal
A dream state of affairs for Montreal would see defender Claire Thompson, Erin Ambrose’s former Workforce Canada defence associate, accessible at quantity 5.
Ambrose logged a ton of minutes on Montreal’s blueline final yr, together with greater than 61 minutes in a triple-overtime playoff loss to Boston.
One other dependable defender is probably going on the prime of Montreal’s low season buying checklist and Thompson matches the invoice.
Thompson was on New York’s reserve checklist final season whereas attending medical faculty, however could not play attributable to a visa problem. However she’s proven her hockey IQ whereas enjoying for Workforce Canada prior to now, setting a brand new file for factors by a defender on the Olympics in 2022.
Montreal may additionally use one other top-six ahead however there ought to nonetheless be choices accessible within the second spherical, whether or not it is Daniel, Ohio State ahead Jennifer Gardiner or Abby Boreen, who enters the draft already a Walter Cup champion as a reserve with PWHL Minnesota final season.
Toronto
Toronto is making ready for the likelihood that the workforce’s greatest participant might not be accessible to begin the season. Natalie Spooner posted a photograph on social media earlier this week that confirmed she’s recovering from surgical procedure, after a knee harm took her out of the playoffs.
With that in thoughts, Kingsbury stated the workforce is wanting for extra offence this low season, particularly with the likelihood that Spooner may miss a while.
Up entrance, a participant who may replicate among the components Spooner brings is St. Lawrence College ahead Julia Gosling, and he or she’s somebody each Kingsbury and head coach Troy Ryan are accustomed to.
Gosling describes herself as a 200-foot energy ahead.
“I am fairly tall and I’ve a fairly good shot, so every time I can launch that shot, I am a fairly large risk in simply driving pucks to the online, getting in entrance of the online,” Gosling stated.
“But in addition taking good care of the D-zone and getting again and being a again checker, and serving to out down there as a result of I do not like getting scored in opposition to, both.”
Ought to Toronto go for defensive assist, veteran Finnish defender Ronja Savolainen may add measurement and talent to the blueline. She’d slot in properly on what’s already some of the bodily groups within the league.
