Daniela Pejšová has spent years watching the NHL draft and feeling excited for the boys who get to have their draft second.
However she at all times wished she might dream about being drafted.
On Monday, the Czech defender will get that probability. She’ll get to stroll throughout the stage and pull on a sweater from the PWHL workforce that chooses her. It is a second she’ll journey internationally to expertise.
“Typically it is exhausting to consider that it is true,” Pejšová mentioned. “I am very excited.”
Forty-two gamers will hear their identify referred to as throughout the seven-round PWHL draft on Monday in St. Paul, Minn. The draft, which will likely be streamed on the league’s YouTube channel, begins at 7 p.m. ET.
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 the whole lot it’s worthwhile to know forward of Monday evening’s draft.
New York will choose first, adopted by Ottawa, Minnesota, Boston, Montreal and Toronto. That order, which relies on regular-season standings, will repeat over all seven rounds.
Greater than 160 gamers have declared themselves for the draft and will likely be eligible to be chosen, together with gamers from 19 international locations.
“Gamers are getting higher and gamers are coming from in every single place these days,” mentioned American nationwide workforce defender and prime draft prospect Cayla Barnes, who grew up in California. “You see it at girls’s worlds. Groups are getting higher. Video games are shut. It is wonderful to see.”
Transferring internationally
Pejšová performed for powerhouse Luleå Hockey within the Swedish Ladies’s Hockey League (SDHL) final season and received a league championship. She additionally performs on the Czech Republic nationwide workforce, and is anticipated to be chosen in the primary two or three rounds of Monday’s draft.
Pejšová did not plan to return to Luleå subsequent season. Because the inaugural PWHL season went on and he or she watched from afar, she stored fascinated about the potential of transferring to North America.
It was encouragement from her finest pal, PWHL Montreal defender Dominika Lásková, who satisfied her to take the following step and declare for the draft.
Pejšová, who turns 22 in August, could possibly be the youngest participant to compete within the PWHL subsequent season.
‘A dream come true’
The draft is not simply the way in which into the PWHL for younger and rising gamers. Veteran gamers who’d prefer to enter the league should undergo the draft, too.
That features 26-year-old Ronja Savolainen, who performed on Luleå’s blueline alongside Pejšová this previous season, logging 29 factors in 35 video games. Savolainen has eight years {of professional} hockey with Luleå below her belt.
At five-foot-10, she’ll deliver measurement, velocity and grit to a PWHL’s workforce’s defence subsequent season.
“It may be a dream come true to play in one of the best league on this world,” Savolainen mentioned. “I am simply so happy with myself that I took the step. It was exhausting to say goodbye to Luleå however I feel that is one of the best for me and one of the best for my hockey profession, to maneuver on.”
Gamers coming from the SDHL and different European leagues will likely be taking part in on a smaller ice floor. With much less room to manoeuvre, Savolainen is anticipating to have much less time to make selections in video games the place physicality can have extra impression.
As she watched PWHL highlights this season, Finnish ahead Noora Tulus instantly noticed a sooner and extra bodily fashion of play, pointing to speedy Montreal ahead Laura Stacey as a barometer of the league’s tempo.
“I want to organize myself for it,” mentioned 28-year-old Tulus, who led the Swedish league in factors this previous season. “I really feel I want to come back there with my sport fashion and I have to belief what I can do on the ice and go together with my strengths.”
Having extra expertise from internationally is nice for the PWHL, but additionally for these gamers’ dwelling international locations.
Savolainen expects video games towards Canada or america at Olympics or world championships to get tighter as gamers on her workforce transfer into the PWHL. Boston’s Susanna Tapani was the one Finnish participant within the PWHL final season.
“I feel we are able to beat them sooner or later if we simply get extra gamers on the opposite aspect of the [world in the PWHL] and type of play towards these finest gamers that we solely get a couple of instances every year with the nationwide workforce,” Savolainen mentioned.
Swedish league a PWHL improvement hub?
Thirty-one gamers from the Swedish Ladies’s Hockey League declared for the draft this 12 months. Thought-about the second-best girls’s hockey league on the earth behind the PWHL, it might additionally turn into a improvement hub for PWHL gamers.
The SDHL could possibly be a part of that answer. On Thursday, Toronto GM Gina Kingsbury mentioned her workforce is in talks to work with European golf equipment that share her workforce’s philosophy and values, although she did not point out any particular groups.
“Not that we’d implement an athlete that is drafted by us that would not make our workforce to to move abroad,” Kingsbury mentioned.
“However having these alternatives in entrance of them and having the ability to to assist information them in that sense I feel is one essential a part of planning and the imaginative and prescient of our group for the longer term.”
