The PWHL draft — a historic moment in women’s hockey — is nearly upon us.
On Monday, the league’s six original franchises will make their first-ever draft selections to build on their foundational free-agent signings. There will be 15 rounds and 90 selections (in a snake draft format) from a pool of 268 players who declared for the draft.
The draft will be streamed on CBC and sponsored by Canadian Tire Corporation, which struck a multiyear agreement with the league as its first founding partner.
There is a ton of intrigue at the top and bottom of the board. After Taylor Heise — as close to a consensus No. 1 pick as we’re going to get in this unique format — there’s no guarantee whose names will be called when Toronto, Boston, New York, Ottawa and Montreal step up to make their selections.
Will Toronto maneuver away from Canadian national team members and take Swiss star Alina Müller? Will we see an early run on defenders? How long will teams wait to select their first goalie?
Before we get real answers to those questions, we have decided to take on the fun — and yes, a little foolish — task of looking at how the draft could play out.
These are, of course, just educated guesses, as only the teams themselves know for certain who they’re targeting when…
