PWHL to hold 7-round player draft in June

The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) will hold its 2024 player draft in June.

The draft will be seven rounds, with as many as 42 players selected by the league's six teams, the PWHL announced on Tuesday. The league hasn't said exactly when or where the draft will be held.

The draft will kick off a busy summer of player movement in the PWHL, with a significant number of current players on one-year deals. They will be competing for roster spots with new players entering the league.

Players who are interested in entering the draft can declare with the PWHL between March 1 and May 8. Those who want to enter the league must declare for the draft in order to be eligible to be drafted or to sign as a free agent should they go undrafted.

"The draft is the primary gateway to the PWHL and number one source of new talent," the PWHL's senior vice president of hockey operations, Jayna Hefford, said in a statement.

As many as 42 players will be drafted by the six PWHL teams at the second annual draft in June. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

"The majority of the league's founding players were selected in the inaugural PWHL Draft, and we anticipate the level of play will continue to be raised across the league as teams make their picks in June."

The league held its first draft last September inside the CBC atrium in downtown Toronto. Ninety players were selected over 15 rounds, a much longer draft because teams needed to build their rosters from scratch.

Nearly all of those drafted players signed contracts to play in the league this season.

It might be a harder road for players selected in 2024, beyond the top picks. Each team has only 23 roster spots and three reserve players, with some of those spots locked up by players on multi-year contracts.

For those that don't make a PWHL roster, there aren't many options, assuming that player has completed their college or university eligibility.

There are leagues in Europe, most notably the Swedish Women's Hockey League (SDHL). But the PWHL doesn't have a development league. It means a player could be drafted and find themselves without a place to play, particularly if they want to stay in North America.

It's a problem Hefford acknowledged last month, after being asked whether expansion or a development system is on the league's radar.

"We don't want to expand too quickly," Hefford told reporters in January.

"We want to make sure that we do it right, we do it smart, we keep the depth of talent really high. But we also know that each year that goes by, we have more and more players adding to that depth pool, and that teams are going to have the rights to more and more players that they need to have playing and developing."

No minimum age to be drafted

There's no minimum or maximum age in the draft, but it's likely players will continue to follow the same pathway they've always followed in women's hockey, where they play several years in college or university before turning professional.

A front-runner for first overall in this year's draft is Canadian Olympic gold medallist Sarah Fillier, who posted 11 points in seven games in Beijing in 2022, when she was only 21 years old. She's been Canada's top scorer at the last two world championship tournaments, and is a key piece of Team Canada's present and future.

Canadian Olympic gold medallist Sarah Fillier is a front-runner for first-overall pick in the 2024 PWHL draft. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

This season at Princeton University, Fillier has 41 points in 27 games.

Other likely high picks, should they declare for the draft, include Canadian national team forward Danielle Serdachny (Colgate University), Ohio State stars Cayla Barnes and Hannah Bilka, who were both at least point-per-game players for the U.S. en route to gold at the last world championship, and Julia Gosling (St. Lawrence University), who was centralized with Canada before the last Olympics but didn't make the final roster.

The PWHL draft won't just be an entry point for talent coming from college or university. Veteran European players who want to play in the PWHL will also need to enter the draft to play.

A veteran Finnish defender like Jenni Hiirikoski or Ronja Savolainen would likely be selected high if they decide they want to play in North America.

Teams can trade draft picks after season ends

Teams weren't allowed to trade draft picks before last year's draft, nor can they trade them during this season.

That will change once this season ends, when a window will open that allows teams to make trades involving draft picks.

Another change from last year's draft: picks will be made in a traditional format rather than a snake draft format, meaning each round will be conducted in the same order.

Ninety players were drafted at the first PWHL draft in September 2023. (CBC Sports)

Teams hold rights for drafted players for two seasons. If they aren't signed during that time, they become eligible to enter the draft again.

Players who declare for the draft but aren't selected will be eligible to sign as free agents, but players can't declare for more than two drafts. Undrafted players can be signed as free agents as of June 21.

The league hasn't yet spelled out exactly how free agency will work for current PWHL players.