The Minnesota Frost have 16 players sitting as pending free agents ahead of a four-team PWHL expansion process that will focus on signing, not selecting players.

After a difficult and physical season, the Frost also have a number of players requiring offseason surgery. 

For the back-to-back Walter Cup champions, who for the first time found themselves eliminated in the opening round of the PWHL playoffs, it all aligns to impending change, and a new level of work for general manager Melissa Caruso this offseason.

"I think it's a pretty different process this year overall," said Caruso. "We're in a different spot relative to the number of players we have under contract and on expiring contract... a lot's going to change again."

This will be Caruso's first significant offseason as general manager. The roster that won the Minnesota Frost their inaugural Walter Cup, and second title last season was almost exclusively constructed by Hall of Famer Natalie Darwitz, who was the team's inaugural general manager. Darwitz was ousted in what became the league's biggest controversy involving multiple members of the Frost, and head coach Ken Klee.

This offseason, there are no off-ice issues for the Minnesota Frost to deal with, but the team is facing a daunting task of trying to sign or protect many of their pending free agents before the four expansion teams in Detroit, Hamilton, Las Vegas, and what's believed to be San Jose, can ink Minnesota players.

"Overall, it's things are going to change. It's great for the league, it's great for the game. That's our job is to grow the game and we're just going to have to deal with whatever comes down the pipeline in the next couple weeks."

With the three leading scorer in the PWHL this season in Kelly Pannek, Taylor Heise, and Britta Curl-Salemme, and two tied for fifth in Kendall Coyne Schofield and Grace Zumwinkle, the Frost are loaded with firepower. The team however, can only protect three of those players, and all but Curl-Salemme are pending unrestricted free agents.

"I mean it's a great problem to have, right? We have so much talent on this team," Caruso said "...We acknowledge that talent needs to be dispersed now, but yeah, I think we're going to make every effort we can to retain as much of our core that we can."

The PWHL is set to begin their PWHL player dispersal process, at least tentatively according to PWHLPA communications, on May 28. As this season wraps up, Minnesota will monitor who they lose, and plan appropriately for their own free agency and draft efforts.

Last season the Frost lost Claire Thompson and Sophie Jaques in the opening days of expansion to the Vancouver Goldeneyes, and later lost Denisa Krisova and Brooke McQuigge to Vancouver. 

They made moves by drafting Kendall Cooper, signing Sidney Morin, and then making a late season trade for Jincy Roese to address their blueline, and traded to get Krizova back. 

This time around however, Klee knows Minnesota could be facing heavy losses.

"Right now we're we're kind of wrapping up this year and trying to look at what this whole expansion process, which as Melissa alluded to is going to be completely different, and the fact is we're going to lose some really good players."

"With the league growing as much and having as much success as we do when you look at the scoring leaders in the league, if I'm new teams coming in, I would be looking heavily at our players as well."

When the dust settles, Klee, Caruso and their staff will assess Minnesota's roster again and plot a path forward.

"Right now I think we're just trying to get through this process and then we're definitely going to evaluate; you know, we're coming into the draft...do we need a goalie? Do we need a D? Do we need a forward? You know, what needs do we need? And then we'll try to address that in the draft."

Hopefully we can we retain still a good number of players who know what it's like to be a Frost player, know the commitment, know the dedication, know the everyday habits that we expect from them and we'll try to go from there."

While Minnesota could be facing heavy losses to their roster in expansion, the team could also have other question marks heading into the offseason as Klee says there are 4-5 players facing offseason surgery.

The Frost lost Dominique Petrie to season-ending surgery following an in season injury. While Caruso didn't confirm who would be requiring surgery, the team did miss Kendall Coyne Schofield and Natalie Buchbinder for stretches this season due injury.

"Unfortunately... it's a hard game and we've got I think four or five surgeries scheduled and and it just, you know, it's just one of those things," said Klee. So I mean they're all doing their medicals now and obviously I won't get into what players are doing what out of their own privacy but but it's hard. I mean our our ladies played hard. We had, you know, players dealing with injuries all year that just continue in the playoffs and then obviously a few just how hard the playoffs are in general. I mean, it was a super physical series as was the other one and it's kind of part of it."

Minnesota was eliminated in five games by the Montreal Victoire after finishing third overall and having the Victoire choose Minnesota as their opening round opponent.