Marie-Philip Poulin Is 2025 MVP As PWHL Rosters Are Reshaped At Draft

Wednesday morning, Marie-Philip Poulin and Montreal Victoire cleaned up at the 2025 PWHL Awards.

The Montreal captain, who led the league with 19 goals in 30 regular-season games, was named the league’s top forward and winner of the Billie Jean King MVP Award.

Amid a decorated career that includes three Olympic gold medals, four world championship golds and, last week, the IIHF’s 2024-25 female player of the year award, the 34-year-old called her latest honors “pretty special.” After acknowledging the support of her teammates, she admitted that “Honestly, I would exchange these trophies for the bigger one — that’s for sure.”

Despite finishing comfortably atop the regular-season standings, the Victoire failed to advance out of the first round of the Walter Cup playoffs for the second-straight year.

Montreal netminder Ann-Renee Desbiens was also named the league’s goaltender of the year, coach Kori Cheverie was named coach of the year, and forward Laura Stacey received the ‘Hockey for All’ award, which recognized the player who made the biggest impact in her community during the 2024-25 season. Stacey raised over $100,000 through her ‘LS7 Sticks In For Charity’ Road Hockey Tournament, with funds supporting under-resourced communities in Toronto and Montreal.

“As I’m starting to get older and realize that I do want to have an impact and we could leave a legacy,” said Stacey, 31. “There’s so many leaders, trailblazers and community heroes who have done so much for sport and for women, so it was a huge honor to receive this award today. I definitely don’t take it lightly.”

Renata Fast of the Toronto Sceptres won the league’s defender of the year award, and Sarah Fillier of the New York Sirens was named the league’s top rookie.

Sirens Take Big Swings At The Draft

On Tuesday, Fillier’s Sirens had a dramatic evening at the PWHL’s third entry draft. After his team finished last in the standings for a second-straight season, GM Pascal Daoust elected to shake things up with the league’s first-ever draft-day player trade, moving defender Ella Shelton to Toronto in exchange for the third-overall pick and the No. 27 pick.

After scoring the fewest total goals over the league’s first two seasons and losing top forwards Jessie Eldridge and Alex Carpenter to Seattle during the expansion process, the Sirens made Kristyna Kaltounkova of Colgate University the first Czech player ever to be selected first overall at the PWHL draft. Then, Daoust followed up by choosing 2025 Patty Kazmaier Award winner Casey O’Brien out of the University of Wisconsin, thus boosting his forward group with arguably the two top talents available this year.

Later, Daoust dealt forward Abby Roque to Montreal in exchange for gritty forward Kristin O’Neill and the 28th pick.

When the dust settled, the Sirens had made nine picks in the six-round draft — six forwards, one defender and two goaltenders.

“We felt that it was an opportunity for us to gear up and cover a new angle,” Daoust said. “We’re very happy with it.”

Vancouver And Ottawa Take International Approach

As the PWHL prioritized competitive balance when setting the stage for its expansion process and with more expansion on the horizon, it has become apparent that teams might not get the opportunity to develop their draft prospects over a period of time.

Five of last year’s six first-round picks were claimed by the two new expansion teams, with Seattle bringing in Danielle Serdachny (Ottawa), Hannah Bilka (Boston), Cayla Barnes (Montreal) and Julia Gosling (Toronto), while Vancouver signed Claire Thompson away from Minnesota.

Rather than look for NCAA prospects to develop at the draft, the GMs for Vancouver and Ottawa looked to Europe to add immediate offensive pop.

Vancouver GM Cara Gardner Morey used her team’s first-round pick at No. 7 to select Michelle Karvinen, a 35-year-old Finn who is a legend in the international game. Her eight world championship medals include a silver from 2019, and she served as captain of Finland’s bronze-medal group in 2025.

Lately, Karvinen has been playing in Sweden. Earlier in her career, she spent three years at the University of North Dakota. She also won a championship with the KRS Vanke Rays in Russia’s women’s league in 2021-22, on a team coached by new Vancouver bench boss Brian Idalski which also included PWHL Vancouver players Michela Cava and Hannah Miller.

“I just kept hoping that no one picked her ahead of us,” said Gardner Morey. “We obviously wanted a top forward and Michelle is a proven winner — she’s got the experience. I think that leadership, and veteran players, are really important in this league. We had a chance to get one of those in an entry draft that’s usually not available. I’ve gotten to know her personality through some players, and she’s going to be one of those special players in the locker room.”

Gardner Morey also shored up her crease through a trade. Former Toronto Sceptres netminder Kristen Campbell headed west along with the 19th pick in a deal that saw Vancouver send the 16th and 23rd picks to the Sceptres. Vancouver then selected North Vancouver native Nina Jobst-Smith with that 19th pick and closed out the draft by choosing the PWHL’s first-ever South Asian player and the only player this year from Canada’s USports program — local product Chanreet Bassi from the University of British Columbia.

After the Walter Cup finalist Ottawa Charge lost 15-goal-scorer Tereza Vanisova to Vancouver as well as seeing Serdachny go to Seattle, GM Mike Hirshfeld set his sights on two veteran forwards from Russia’s women’s league. With the fifth pick in the second round, he selected 28-year-old Anna Shokhina. He added her 27-year-old St. Petersburg teammate, Fanuza Kadirova, in Round 6.

“We think Anna Shokhina — we had her as probably the fourth-most-talented player in this draft. That’s how highway we thought of her,” Hirshfeld said. “To get her at 13 was really exciting for us. We think she’s going to be a superstar in this league.”

One other veteran from the European leagues was also selected. Sara Hjalmarsson, a 27-year-old Swedish defender, went to Toronto in the fifth round.

Roster Rebuilds

After the shocking losses of the expansion process, the inaugural six teams and their fanbases can now breathe a little easier. Forty-six new roster spots were created by adding the Vancouver and Seattle franchises, and 48 players were selected in Tuesday’s draft.

That breaks down to 30 forwards, 13 defenders and 5 goaltenders, with 43 players coming out of NCAA programs. Ohio State University led the way with six players selected, followed by the University of Minnesota Duluth with five.

Of the 48 players, exactly half hail from the United States, followed by 17 from Canada, two each from Czechia, Finland and Russia and one from Sweden.

With 192 players declaring for the draft this year, the next step for undrafted players will be to try to earn training-camp invitations for a chance to play their way onto a team or its reserve squad.

Will the next Marie-Philip Poulin emerge from the PWHL’s class of ‘25?