Montreal Victoire GM Daniele Sauvageau is now Canada's new national team GM. She'll stay with Montreal this season before leaving to devote her full attention to building Canada's program toward the 2030 Olympics. Here are all the details from coaching staff, to roster, and her Victoire departure.
Daniele Sauvageau is the new general manager for Canada's senior national women's hockey team. She'll begin immediately building a team, and staff, for the November World Championships.
When that tournament is complete, Sauvageau will turn her energy to the PWHL's Montreal Victoire for the 2026-27 season, which will be her final with Montreal before she steps away to put her full focus on Team Canada.
Why Is Sauvageau Leaving The Victoire?
After winning the 2026 Walter Cup and being inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder, Sauvageau is ready to put her full attention toward Canada getting back to gold.
Sauvageau said she wouldn't be maintaining a dual role in order to give her full attention and effort to the job at hand, this season with Montreal, and beyond that with Canada. She believes each organization deserves a general manager's full effort.
"It’s too much in a sense," she said of holding both roles.
This season, Sauvageau will focus on planning for Canada's national program, while placing her efforts to winning another title with Montreal. When Montreal's year ends, it will be all Team Canada.
"Obviously there, it’s another level and what I mean by that is that I think both organizations deserve to have... all that time for for the following year."
"That's a promise I did make to both organizations, I will never put one team in jeopardy over the other one."
Who Will Coach Team Canada?
Sauvageau made it clear, she's ready to consider all options when it comes to hiring a coaching staff.
She discussed examining the NHL model where coaches are brought in for each World Championship event, and said that she'll need to hire a coach for the upcoming World Championships in November, but would then reevaluate what is best heading toward the 2030 Olympics, which she called her main objective.
Sauvageau also stated she'd consider coaches from the PWHL, those dedicated to only Hockey Canada, or a "hybrid" model.
"We see us naming a coaching staff for the next World and then evaluate after that," Sauvageau told media.
"Every option is on the table right now and I think it’s important to take the time to do that," she said.
Following this World Championship event is when Sauvageau anticipates taking that time to evaluate all options and planning for Canada's next moves on the bench, and on the ice.
Canada's Plan For The Future
Daniele Sauvageau knows Team Canada's national program is coming off a rocky season that saw them swept in the Rivalry Series, give up a record number of goals against USA in the process, fall to the United States in the gold medal game at the 2025 World Championships, and again, ultimately, at the 2026 Olympics. Canada also lost to USA in their national development team series, and at the U-18 World Championships.
Canada has fallen behind the USA's development model and national program, and Canada's national program will enter November without captain Marie-Philip Poulin and veteran leader Blayre Turnbull. It's also likely Sauvageau will usher in fresh faces to begin retooling Canada's aging core which has proven itself unable to keep up with the Americans. At the 2026 Olympics, Canada left behind the majority of the nation's young talent from both the PWHL and NCAA, while the United State's young and dynamic roster dominated.
Sauvageau believes adapting the program to the PWHL era is paramount.
"The first thought is to adapt to the new landscape of what women’s hockey is with obviously the PWHL, which is the greatest project that ever happened in women’s hockey globally I mean, this is just like the pinnacle of everything and at the same time the World being in November, so it is very a short-term around for it for this year obviously every decision that will be made will be to get closer to the main objective objective which is 2030," Sauvageau said.
Sauvageau told players that just because they weren't at last year's World Championships or Olympics, doesn't mean they won't make a future roster, and discussed the 'two season' approach where the PWHL is one season, and the national team is now nearly its own season for Canada given the lengthy gaps in the PWHL's offerings and the fact players will turn their focus from the PWHL to the national team in that gap.
After the November Worlds, she intends to devise a plan for what those long summer gaps will look like, and how Hockey Canada can utilize the team to not only benefit their national program, but women's hockey players across the country.
"After that my role will be to again to strategize, which is to put a strategic plan to what is the summer will look like and what adaptation to obviously create the best environment as possible different hubs across the country to benefit the national team and will benefit every professional, U SPORT and NCAA players as well," she added.
Why Daniele Sauvageau?
She's a winner. Sauvageau won a World Championship title coaching Canada. She also won Canada's first ever Olympic gold as coach and GM in 2002. She's also a builder who has pushed back against the status quo and been willing to make difficult decisions to build programs locally, regionally, nationally, and professionally in the PWHL.
In Sauvageau's own words, it's her willingness to look at what exists and make the necessary changes that ultimately drove Hockey Canada's decisions.
"I'm going to put the vision," she said. "One of the things I was told they were knocking at my door for the vision, the courage to make a decision and the capacity to obviously analyze and make changes to adapt where we are at at this point and time."
