PWHL Draft Success Bound To Impact NCAA Recruiting
Ohio State and Northeastern lead the way in drafted players following two PWHL Drafts. In the future, incoming prospects will likely consider a program's draft success when considering their school.
National championships and academic programs won't be the only thing NCAA women's hockey programs are dangling to entice recruits moving forward; promises of PWHL dreams will also be on the menu as some programs emerge as stronger development pathways to the pros.
Leading the way early is Ohio State who saw 12 players drafted from their program selected in the inaugural two drafts. But it doesn't tell the full story either as half of those players transferred to Ohio State after developing in other programs. This season that included first round draft picks Cayla Barnes and Hannah Bilka, and Hadley Hartmetz who all transferred to Ohio State from Boston College, Lauren Bernard and Stephanie Markowski who transferred from Clarkson, and Raygan Kirk who came from Robert Morris. Ohio State's group of 12 includes Raygan Kirk, Hadley Hartmetz, Lauren Bernard, Stephanie Markowski, Jennifer Gardiner, Emma Maltais, Sophie Jaques, Cayla Barnes, Hannah Bilka, Madison Bizal, Paeytn Levis, Gabby Rosenthal.
Still, Ohio State's pathway to the PWHL is clear, and they are currently the NCAA team with the most players selected in PWHL Draft history.
While the WCHA, which includes power porgrams like Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota-Duluth, and Minnesota certainly leads the way in terms of overall picks from a conference, the second school on the list of PWHL producers is Northeastern who have seen seven players selected. Last year that group included star forwards Alina Muller, Chloe Aurard, and Maureen Murphy, along with defender Maude Poulin-Labelle who all played in the PWHL this season, and 2024 Draft Picks Katy Knoll, Gwyneth Philips, and Megan Carter.
Three schools - Colgate, Wisconsin, and Minnesota-Duluth all tied with five picks over the past two seasons. Colgate's cohort were all selected this season with Danielle Serdachny, Dara Greig, Allyson Simpson, Kayle Osborne, and Sydney Bard being chosen in the 2024 PWHL Draft. Wisconsin's draft class includes 2023 picks Natalie Buchbinder, Jesse Compher, and Sophie Shirley, and 2024 picks Britta Curl and Anna Wilgren. Minnesota-Duluth's group included 2023 picks in Gabbie Hughes, Ashton Bell, Emma Soderberg, and Maggie Flaherty and 2024 pick Manon McMahon.
If you consider free agent signings right out of college along with draft picks, Minnesota could be considered the next with Taylor Heise, Grace Zumwinkle and Madeline Wethington as direct picks, while Abby Boreen could also be considered in that group along with free agent signing Savannah Norcross.
Clarkson had three picks - Brooke McQuigge, Dominique Petrie, and Gabrielle David - while Princeton had two picks - Sarah Fillier and Maggie Connors - and Mariah Keopple who signed as a free agent.
Beyond this group are four schools with two each. Those programs include St. Lawrence (Mae Batherson, Julia Gosling), Yale (Claire Dalton, Elle Hartje), Quinnipiac (Zoe Boyd, Lexie Adzija), and Minnesota State, who had two free agent signings in Claire Butorac and Brooke Bryant.
Beyond this group are several schools with a single pick including Providence College (Sandra Abstreiter), Vermont (Theresa Schafzahl), Harvard (Kristin Della Rovere), Boston College (Abbey Levy), St. Cloud State (Klara Hymlarova), and Cornell (Izzy Daniel).
In total, this represents only 18 schools in the first two seasons of the PWHL Draft out of 43 programs nationally.
College Hockey America and NEWHA conferences have not had a player drafted yet, although there are strong prospects approaching their draft eligibility from CHA, which is know known as Atlantic Hockey America.
Three U Sports programs saw players drafted to step to the pros in Concordia (Emmy Fecteau), Waterloo (Carley Olivier), and Montreal (Audrey-Anne Veillette).
While it's too early to base recruiting strictly on professional picks, it will certainly become a consideration 2-3 years from now when each school has seen an entire recruiting group move through their programs.