Tuesday FTB: PWHL Draft

The PWHL awards are tonight and the nominees are:

• Rookie of the Year 
  • Alina Müller
  • Emma Maltais
  • Grace Zumwinkle
• Coach of the Year 
  • Kori Cheverie
  • Courtney Kessel
  • Troy Ryan
• Forward of the Year
  • Alex Carpenter
  • Marie-Philip Poulin 
  • Natalie Spooner
• Defender of the Year 
  • Erin Ambrose
  • Megan Keller
  • Ella Shelton
• Goaltender of the Year 
  • Kristen Campbell
  • Aerin Frankel
  • Corinne Schroeder
• Billie Jean King MVP Award 
  • Alex Carpenter
  • Marie-Philip Poulin
  • Natalie Spooner

Last night was the draft and New York stole Sarah Fillier with the first overall.

There was a very early pick trade!

Toronto picked:

Pick 6: Julia Gosling, Team Canada forward, and Londoner to make it even better. She was awesome at Worlds, and I'm really thrilled to get to see her all the time (also GDT gifs). She's got the right chippy game with scoring skill to fit in with Toronto.

Pick 12: Megan Carter, from Milton. She's a tall shutdown D and team captain who just finished her graduate degree at Northeastern. She plans a career in sports medicine (someone point her at Wick). She's only 23 and was invited to a Team Canada camp last year, which is where the Toronto people would have seen her up close.

Carter received three Elite 90 Academic Recognitions from the National Collegiate Athletic Association in addition to being awarded the Hockey East Best Defender of the Year Award for the second year running and a New England Division 1 All-Star recognition. 

Pick 18: Izzy Daniel from Minneapolis. She was the star forward at Cornell and the broadcast described her as playing a hard, greasy game. The current Patty Kazmaier winner. Sounds like a Toronto player.

Ms. Daniel is an Analyst working on NHL and NFL statistical analyses and criterion data. She is a Sophomore at Cornell University where she plays on the Women’s Ice Hockey team that finished the 2019-20 season ranked #1 in the country. Izzy is studying Industrial Labor Relations and Sports Management. She enjoys dogs and wake surfing.

Pick 24: Lauren Bernard of Ohio State. She's a tall defender, and another drafted player off the championship team.

• Two-time National Champion (2022, 2024)
• Two-time WCHA regular season champion (2023, 2024)
• WCHA Final Faceoff Champion (2022)
• OSU Scholar-Athlete (2022, 2023, 2024)
• Academic All-Big Ten (2023)
• WCHA All-Academic Team (2023, 2024)

Pick 30: Noemi Neubauerová, a 24-year-old forward from Czechia. She is (wait for it) tall, and not much of a scorer on the national team. She's been in the SDHL (Sweden) since college in the US. She actually played in the US high school system as well. She was originally at Colgate, but went to Providence for an MBA.

Pick 36: Anneke Linser, a 24-year-old forward from Minnesota-Duluth. She called herself a blue collar and physical 200' player. That said, she was third on her team in points her last year in college. She is American, from Minnesota but played in Sweden last year where she led Djurgården in points.

Montréal drafted Amanda Kessel with pick 41, and then Toronto had the last pick.

Pick 42: Raygan Kirk is a goalie from Manitoba. She was the Frozen Four MVP as she backstopped Ohio State to victory. She has the sort of mixed record common with goalies in women's hockey – they don't play enough. When she's had starts, she's had great save%, when she's the number two, not so much. So if Toronto signs her, they need to consider playing time.

There was an interview with Natalie Spooner during the draft. She had surgery for an MCL injury and is in rehab. She was on crutches at the event.

In SCF news, Florida and Oilers did a thing that seemed to involve a lot of Florida hockey, some of it played by Oilers. (I have no idea, I'm just going by Twitter.)

Are they the Leafs now?

In other news:

Look for more prospect analysis today, and I'm coming back to the finding a defencemen game with a post about UFAs.

That's all for now, have a great non-Monday weekday.