Julia Pellerin Is Coaching Her Way To Victory, And A Brighter Future

Julia Pellerin will be a major contender in the 2027 PWHL Draft. She’s gotten there by coaching the generation behind her. 

Pellerin, a transfer student and forward at the University of Connecticut, has been a major producer for the Huskies, notching two goals and two assists in the team's eight games .

She sees her biggest strengths as shot count, she led UConn with 203 shots last year, and speed. 

“That translates into more offensive opportunities and getting shots off because I can get up the ice a little bit quicker.”

She also has experience playing on both wings and at center, giving her better vision on the ice. 

“The systems that you're playing in change from team to team, but having the experience, I feel like I could just hop in at a game and just play whatever,” she said. 

In the 2025-26 season, she finished with 14 goals and 16 assists and was invited to the 2026 USA Hockey Women’s National Festival. The year prior, at Boston College, she led Hockey East in scoring with 34 points. 

Pellerin transferred to UConn in her junior year due to the program’s priority on academics and on developing her as “a whole person.” 

As she put it: “I wanted to find a place that I'd be happy at if I had an injury and was unable to play hockey anymore. I could just see myself and my well-being being taken care of here.”

Her degree in communications, something she pursued at both universities, is to help her be a more effective coach, something she’s worked on since her freshman year of high school. 

When her father, Scott Pellerin, a Hobey Baker winner and former NHL player of 12 years, started the North American Elite Girls Hockey program, she was “tossed in” to a mentoring role for the young skaters in the program. It was where she first fell in love with coaching.

Pellerin thinks of the skill as something that’s “kind of in our in our blood.” Her father coached her through youth teams, and she still thinks of him as “part of her career,” given his insights on her game. 

Pellerin is first planning to shoot for the PWHL, though. She’s working on increasing her physicality this season and has been able to hone her game on both ends of the ice. 

“It's becoming more real. So I'm excited to see where my path lands in that.”

Coaching has been a big part of that growth. It allows her to reflect on her own skills, get more reps in and see the younger generation coming in behind her.

“It just increases the passion because when you see somebody enjoying it and you see somebody getting better, it just raises your your love for the game,” she said.