Will the 2025 PWHL Draft Be Strong Enough For Expansion? Or Should The League Wait Until 2026?

When the 2026 PWHL Draft hits, an abundance of talent will pour into the PWHL including Caroline Harvey, Tessa Janecke, Kirsten Simms, Nelli Laitinen, Sydney Morrow and many others. That list could also include Abbey Murphy and Lacey Eden if they choose to hold off another season, as well as European players like Petra Nieminen and Elisa Holopainen.

The depth of the 2026 Draft class, whether it's these top end players, or Josefin Bouveng, Elyssa Biedermann, Emma Peschel, Jade Iginla, Vivian Jungels, Gace Dwyer, and Sara Swiderski, or others, is guaranteed to force expansion, or lose dozens of incredible hockey players.

The 2025 PWHL Draft however, has more question marks. If every player eligible including the aforementioned Murphy and Eden, along with European standouts like Michelle Karvinen, Hannah Olsson, and Michaela Pejzlova declare, there should be enough talent, coupled with a well thought out expansion draft, to balance the league's competition. Without this group however, any expansion next season could cause new teams to struggle on the ice.

Why?

The 2025 PWHL Draft class simply as not as deep, nor does it have the top end talent that the 2024 Draft had without these players. Even with this group, the incoming draft might not live up to 2024.

The top eight picks in the 2024 draft ended up being Sara Fillier, Daniel Serdachny, Claire Thompson, Hannah Bilka, Cayla Barnes, Julia Gosling, Daniela Pejsova, and Ronja Savolainen.

Without key declarations in 2025, the top eight would still have strength, and could look like Haley Winn, Kristyna Kaltounkova, Nicole Gosling, Viivi Vainikka, Natalie Mlynkova, Casey O'Brien, Rory Guilday and one more player. The fact there is no consensus of a first round capable player at the end of round one however, should give the PWHL a moment for pause. Rounding out an eight team first round without everyone declaring could be a player like Anne Cherkowski.

In 2024, the second wave of players still included a group like Noora Tulus, Britta Curl, Maja Nylen Persson, Izzy Daniel, and Jennifer Gardiner who few would have blinked had they snuck into the end of that draft class.

In particular, any PWHL expansion team is likely to only get 1-2 of these players. The rest will again go to strengthening the existing rosters.

It seems logical that the PWHL has several important questions to answer regarding their player pool before they commit to expansion. Will the two American NCAA stars with a year of eligibility declare? Will European veterans stay overseas until after the Olympics, or will they jump this year? What will an expansion draft look like? How can the league improve retention rates after losing a third of their player pool following year one? Will the league expand by one or two teams?

They're all questions that should be known before expansion is announced. The problem is, the PWHL's Draft Declaration period doesn't close until May 8.

Are there 46 capable players?

The answer to this is, yes. There are more than enough players outside of the PWHL this season who are capable of playing professionally in the league. Some can return, players like Akane Shiga, Sydney Brodt, Sarah Bujold, Savannah Norcross, Maude Poulin-Labelle and others. But how do you balance out teams who will be facing rosters with two lines of national team players from across the globe. If the league wants parity, it may involve a much deeper, more invasive expansion draft format. Even outside of the first time eligible draft list, players like Laura Kluge can contribute, but they won't star. Perhaps allowing a pair of expansion teams to struggle for a season and then attack the player pool in year two via the draft, and the 36 players on three-year guaranteed contracts who will hit free agency following next season would be beneficial, rather than trying to build through the strong 2026 Draft, which would have forced expansion anyway, alone.

The league has a lot of questions to answer, including what cities and venues they would expand to, but those questions also come with the concern over keeping the on ice product high, an aspect the league has excelled at since day one. But time is rapidly ticking, particularly as announcing any expansion, even today, would be an almost unachievable timeline for established leagues, let alone a league that is still working out the wrinkles. All fans want expansion, as does the league. Doing it right however, is more important than doing it fast. For the PWHL, they'll hope to achieve both.