Claire Thompson took the year away from hockey but could be an x-factor should she declare for the 2024 PWHL Draft as many expect she will.
Claire Thompson took the year away from hockey but could be an x-factor should she declare for the 2024 PWHL Draft as many expect she will.
The PWHL Draft is a difficult event to rank, as there is no clear "eligibility" criterion, only whether or not a player chooses to declare.
That means an 18-year-old playing minor hockey could declare, current NCAA players, graduates, SDHL players or other European national team members, or even a retired player.
There is one player however, who is expected to declare for next year's PWHL Draft, and that's former Canadian national team member Claire Thompson.
Thompson, a member of the 2022 Olympic All-Star team, would likely still be a member of Team Canada had she not taken a full season off hockey to complete her medical degree.
A smooth skating, puck moving defender, Thompson can dazzle with Canada, and would certainly be a top four blueliner on any PWHL team. The 26-year-old hasn't played a full season since 2019-2020 when she captained Princeton, although she did play 20 games in the PWHPA last year, but you could tell at that point she'd missed time.
Still, she's a world class blueliner who can be a game changer for any team in the league.
Thompson had originally applied for compassionate circumstances this season in the PWHL, and was named a reserve for PWHL New York. But she's currently not eligible to play in the league as her visa is a student visa, not a work visa. If she gets that rectified in the coming weeks, we could still see Thompson make her debut as a reserve with New York.
She has not practices with the team this season, but there are other players in the league like Gigi Marvin and Susanna Tapani who took time away from hockey and have returned with success.
Don't expect Thompson to usurp Cayla Barnes as the top defender available in the draft, but she could make noise jumping ahead of players like Ronja Savolainen and Daniela Pejsova into the top two rounds.