Well, that was fun, if your name happens to be either Cara Gardner Morey or Meghan Turner. With six fanbases in shambles and two glowing in the wake of the expansion draft, they now look towards repairing the damage done or bolstering a strong foundation, respectively, through the entry draft.
Before looking at the prospects potentially available in the first three rounds, there’s still one very important thing that needs to be addressed.
Rinksiders is proud to announce that all of our PWHL and Women’s Hockey content is moving to its own dedicated outlet: PDub Hockey!
Please follow along at pdubhockey.com and find all of our latest Women’s Hockey coverage there!
Determining the draft order
Yeah, we still don’t know that yet, outside of the New York Sirens at first overall. While it’s been rumoured that Seattle and Vancouver would receive the second and third picks, I worry for the state of the Tsongas Center if the Boston Fleet, after missing the playoffs, were given a later pick than the team that took Hilary Knight from them. There’s also the matter of the order in which the playoff teams pick, given the Minnesota Frost selecting before any other despite winning the championship last year. For the sake of this exercise, this is what I’m going with:
- New York Sirens
- Boston Fleet
- Toronto Sceptres
- Montréal Victoire
- Ottawa Charge
- Minnesota Frost
- PWHL Seattle in Round 1, PWHL Vancouver in Rounds 2 and 3
- PWHL Vancouver in Round 1, PWHL Seattle in Rounds 2 and 3
Alright? Alright. Here we go.
Round 1
#1, New York Sirens: Kristýna Kaltounková (F, Colgate)
If anyone in this draft class could fill the shoes of the departed Alex Carpenter, it’s Kaltounková. She’s strong at both ends, has an absolute bullet of a one-timer that she demonstrated for Czechia internationally, and is elite in the face-off dot. Where the two differ is discipline, as while Carpenter has yet to take a penalty in her PWHL career, Kaltounková had more PIMs than points in three of her five NCAA seasons. With the penalty kill being a strength of the Sirens, though, this is just about the best fit possible for her, especially under former Colgate coach Greg Fargo.
#2, Boston Fleet: Casey O’Brien (F, Wisconsin)
Who better to replace Knight than the one who just broke her all-time scoring record at Wisconsin? O’Brien racked up an astounding 88 points in 41 games en route to the Patty Kazmaier award and a national championship. The Fleet were already in need of offensive firepower before losing their leading scorer, and no one is going to provide more of it than O’Brien.
#3, Toronto Sceptres: Nicole Gosling (D, Clarkson)
The Sceptres take Gosling in the first round. What year is it again?
Yes, even with her cousin departing for Seattle, Toronto loves their two-way threats on the blueline out of Clarkson and they have two to pick from here. There’s no wrong choice, but Gosling breaks the tie based on familiarity with Troy Ryan and Gina Kingsbury from her appearances on Canada’s senior national team.
#4, Minnesota Frost via Montréal Victoire: Haley Winn (D, Clarkson)
…We have a trade to announce? In theory, at least. I have the Frost moving up in the first round, sending their top two selections to the Victoire to do so.
Minnesota lost more star power than anyone in the expansion draft, while Montréal’s existing depth issues were only exacerbated. This trade allows the latter to add one more prospect to the cupboard, and the former to jump into the top four to take Winn, the unquestionably best option on the board here. With a points-per-game mark better than any defender in the NCAA not named Caroline Harvey, Winn steps right into what was Claire Thompson’s spot next to Lee Stecklein.
#5, Ottawa Charge: Rory Guilday (D, Cornell)
Either Guilday becomes the yin to Ronja Savolainen’s yang on the hardest defence pair to play against in the PWHL, or Ottawa has a big, mobile, and effective defender on the ice for two-thirds of the game. That’s scary, and despite the forward talent on the board below Guilday, extremely difficult to pass up.
#6, Montréal Victoire via Minnesota Frost: Michelle Karvinen (F, Frölunda)
The Victoire’s 2024 draft class got absolutely raided by the two expansion teams, so instead of picking for potential, they go for the veteran presence and illustrious resume of Karvinen. Adding Finland’s all-time leading scorer and a likely hall-of-famer is undoubtedly a coup, but with her at 35 and Marie-Philip Poulin at 34, Karvinen’s selection establishes an extremely defined window of contention for Montréal.
#7, PWHL Seattle: Natálie Mlýnková (F, Minnesota)
Mlýnková may get lost in the shuffle of what looks like the league’s best forward core going into next season, but she’s well suited to a middle or bottom-six role and that may be just what she needs to transition effectively into the PWHL. By no means is she without an offensive spark though, as seen by her hat tricks in back-to-back World Championships and her Hockey East Player of the Year nod with the Vermont Catamounts in 2024. Mlýnková also joins her national team captain Aneta Tejralová in Seattle.
#8, PWHL Vancouver: Jenna Buglioni (F, Ohio State)
Of the cluster of forwards coming off the board between 6th and 11th overall, why not go for the British Columbia product? Not only that, Buglioni was teammates with Jennifer Gardiner dating back to before college with the Greater Vancouver Comets, as well as her centre at Ohio State. Buglioni captained the Buckeyes to the NCAA finals once again in 2024–25, putting up her best numbers in three years in the process.
Round 2
#9, NY: Ella Huber (F, Minnesota)
Huber’s taken noticeable strides each year of college, and 2024–25 was the culmination of her progress. She put up 33 assists, 25 of them primary, and 48 points next to Abbey Murphy on the Gophers’ top line, breaking into the top ten of WCHA scoring as well as this draft. New York desperately needs complements to Sarah Fillier and Kaltounková up front, and Huber would be an excellent one.
#10, BOS: Anne Cherkowski (F, Clarkson)
The Fleet pass on the Golden Knights in the first round but go back to the Clarkson well after all in the second with Cherkowski. The team’s highest-scoring forward, she featured on the top line for Canada’s national development team but also has the versatility to play up and down Boston’s lineup. Whether they need a centre or a winger, a complimentary piece for Alina Müller or a scoring spark for Shay Maloney, Cherkowski can handle it.
#11, TOR: Abby Hustler (F, St. Lawrence)
Toronto replaced their Gosling, and now they replace their Saints forward. Julia’s departure did a number to St. Lawrence’s offence, and Hustler’s numbers show it. She managed 39 points in as many games after a career-high 55 the year prior, but still found herself 14 points clear of her next closest teammate. With adequate help from a Sceptres forward core that should remain strong, Hustler can certainly excel in Toronto.
#12, MTL: Kendall Cooper (D, Quinnipiac)
There’s a consensus top three among defenders in the draft class before it begins to thin out, but Cooper has separated herself from the rest of that field. Playing big minutes for both Quinnipiac and Canada’s development team, Cooper led a Bobcats defence that allowed the second-fewest goals in the ECAC, putting up a 0.7 points-per-game mark herself to boot. With the Victoire somehow managing to hang onto Erin Ambrose through the expansion draft, Cooper will have one of the best to look up to as she makes the jump to the PWHL.
#13, OTT: Sara Hjalmarsson (F, Linköping)
Ottawa looks to the SDHL for their second-round selection for the second year in a row. Not only is Hjalmarsson a prolific scorer, she finished the year 55.5% in the dot, an area the Charge notably struggled with this past season. Skating is a knock on her, but Ottawa’s wingers have speed to burn and Hjalmarsson’s solid positional play could be a great way to facilitate them.
#14, MTL via MIN: Kiara Zanon (F, Ohio State)
Trading down with the Frost allows Montréal to use their previous pick to address their need on the blueline while still having the opportunity to draft one of the better potential scoring threats of this class. Zanon’s stock has fallen somewhat after the lowest points-per-game rate of her NCAA career in 2025, but she has remained solid with the U.S. U22 team and has a 26-goal, 49-point outburst with Penn State in 2023 under her belt. Like her former Buckeyes teammate Gardiner before her, Zanon could get an audition on the vaunted Victoire first line.
#15, VAN: Anna Shokhina (F, Dynamo-Neva St. Petersburg)
Despite the opportunities the expansion draft gave them Vancouver’s forward core ended up looking fairly underwhelming, but their solidity at the other positions put them in a good spot to take a massive gamble here. Shokhina has been among at least the top five scorers in Russia’s ZhHL for each of the past eleven years, and she’s just 27. With the only pick out of Russia last season, Ilona Markova, not signing with the Fleet, this is fairly uncharted territory for the league, but who better than one of their new teams to take that shot?
#16, SEA: Sanni Ahola (G, St. Cloud State)
A goaltending duo of Corinne Schroeder and Ahola is a luxury to be sure, but one Seattle can absolutely afford given their incredibly strong expansion draft. Ahola is accustomed to a tandem situation, splitting time with Emilia Kyrkkö at both the college and international levels, but got the nod to lead Finland to a podium finish at Worlds. Despite a down year at St. Cloud that left her as the 1B to Kyrkkö’s 1A, Ahola is still the most highly-touted netminder in the class, and should challenge Schroeder for starts.
Round 3
#17, NY: Hannah Murphy (G, Colgate)
The team that lost Schroeder grabs their goalie here too, but it isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to Ahola going off the board; New York might just favour Murphy regardless. In Fargo’s final season coaching the Raiders, his goaltending tandem consisted of Murphy and Kayle Osborne, who both put up save percentages over .940 and now get reunited in teal.
#18, BOS: Nina Jobst-Smith (D, Minnesota-Duluth)
A leader at both Minnesota-Duluth and with the German national team, Jobst-Smith is a reliable presence on the blueline who can chip in on offence as well. Here, she nicely mitigates the Fleet’s losses of Emily Brown and Sydney Bard late in the expansion draft, but with the lack of defensive depth in the class Jobst-Smith could easily be off the board earlier.
#19, TOR: Skylar Irving (F, Northeastern)
Irving broke out in a big way in 2023–24, more than doubling her point total to lead the Huskies and keeping consistent with that this season. She played a two-way, middle-six role for the U.S. development team and projects to do the same in the PWHL, meeting a different need at forward than Hustler for the Sceptres, but a necessary one nonetheless.
#20, MTL: Maya Labad (F, Quinnipiac)
Hailing from just north of Laval, Labad is another player who could potentially ride shotgun on the Victoire top line. She joins Quinnipiac teammate Cooper in Montréal after leading the Bobcats in goal scoring with 15, though Labad did most of her damage outside of the ECAC.
#21, OTT: Vita Poniatovskaia (D, Yale)
The Charge are desperately lacking in right-shot defenders with the only two they’ve ever had, Amanda Boulier and Ashton Bell, both departing the team in their own ways. Poniatovskaia fits that bill, and should seamlessly adjust to Ottawa’s rush-heavy style of play.
#22, MIN: Peyton Hemp (F, Minnesota)
In a move everyone was expecting them to make last year, the Frost select a captain of the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the third round of the PWHL draft. Hemp narrowly set her NCAA career high in points this season with 33, and with the Frost’s top-six left mostly intact through expansion, she should play a similar depth role for them as she did with the U.S. development program.
#23, VAN: Makenna Webster (F, Ohio State)
The line that was listed at the top for the Buckeyes in their championship-winning game in 2023–24? Jennifer Gardiner, Jenna Buglioni, and Makenna Webster. Screw it, Vancouver’s getting the whole gang back together. Webster replicated her goal total from that season in this one, but added nine more assists as well as an “A” to the front of her jersey.
#24, SEA: Sarah Wozniewicz (F, Wisconsin)
I’d liken this pick to Klára Hymlárová from last year’s draft. Not flashy, potentially underwhelming for the slot they were taken, but you don’t win a championship without players like them. Wozniewicz showed up when it mattered the most for the Badgers, scoring the WCHA title-winning goal with under thirty seconds to go.
Just Missed
- Lily Delianedis (F, Cornell)
- Emma Gentry (F, St. Cloud State)
- Morgan Neitzke (F, Lindenwood)
- Ena Nystrøm (G, Brynäs)
- Dayle Ross (D, St. Cloud State)
- Maddy Samoskevich (F/D, Quinnipiac)
- Anna Segedi (F, St. Lawrence)
- Clara Van Wieren (F, Minnesota-Duluth)
Rinksiders 
Leave a comment