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Boston Fleet captain Hilary Knight, original Toronto Sceptres signing Sarah Nurse, defender of the year nominees Claire Thompson and Sophie Jaques are among the players PWHL Seattle and Vancouver will have the opportunity to add during the expansion process.
Each existing team was allowed to protect three players to start with, and those protection lists became public on Tuesday afternoon. The existing teams will lose four players each throughout the expansion process.
Seattle and Vancouver can begin talking to and signing unprotected players and pending free agents on Wednesday morning, as they build their rosters in preparation to begin play in the fall. Over five days, Seattle and Vancouver can each sign as many as five players.
The expansion draft is set for Monday at 8:30 p.m. ET. Seattle and Vancouver will end the process with 12 players each.
Only three goaltenders were protected during the process: Boston’s Aerin Frankel, Montreal’s Ann-Renée Desbiens and Ottawa’s Gwyneth Philips, who was named the playoff MVP. All three are nominated for the league’s goaltender of the year award.
Many teams prioritized veteran leadership. The Minnesota Frost, for example, protected both the team’s captain Kendall Coyne Schofield and assistant captain Lee Stecklein, in lieu of players like Thompson and Jaques. Taylor Heise was also protected by the Frost.
WATCH | How the PWHL’s expansion process will work:
CBC Sports’ Karissa Donkin runs through the rules of the PWHL’s expansion draft, explaining how new clubs in Seattle and Vancouver will fill their roster.
“The situation that we’re in right now with the league is there could be more expansion,” Frost GM Melissa Caruso said earlier in the week. “So it’s almost like we’re planning for very short periods of time right now knowing that we’re going to be experiencing change again coming up in the next couple of couple of years.”
Other teams prioritized high-end defenders, knowing those are at a premium. The New York Sirens, for instance, exposed scorer Alex Carpenter in lieu of protecting defenders Ella Shelton and Micah Zandee-Hart.
After an existing team loses two players to expansion, a fourth can be protected.
Notable omissions
Other top players up for grabs by Seattle and Vancouver include Montreal Victoire defenders Erin Ambrose and Cayla Barnes, Boston Fleet rookie Hannah Bilka, Sirens forward Jessie Eldridge, Ottawa captain Brianne Jenner and starting goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer, and veteran Frost forward Kelly Pannek, who is always reliable in the faceoff circle.
The protection lists
- Boston Fleet (3): Aerin Frankel (G), Megan Keller (D), Alina Müller (F).
- Minnesota Frost (3): Kendall Coyne Schofield (F), Taylor Heise (F), Lee Stecklein (D).
- Montréal Victoire (3): Ann-Renée Desbiens (G), Marie-Philip Poulin (F), Laura Stacey (F).
- New York Sirens (3): Sarah Fillier (F), Ella Shelton (D), Micah Zandee-Hart (D).
- Ottawa Charge (3): Emily Clark (F), Gwyneth Philips (G), Ronja Savolainen (D).
- Toronto Sceptres (3): Renata Fast (D), Blayre Turnbull (F), Daryl Watts (F).