Season Preview: PWHL Montreal

PWHL Montreal enters with a few of the best players in the world, but will they have enough offense? And how will thier team defense stack up? Do they have an X-factor? Here's a preview of PWHL Monteal's roster.

PWHL Montreal built a unique roster for the inaugural PWHL season. They blended veteran stars with overlooked players, and rookie talents. How will it all come together? Here's a look at PWHL Montreal.

Can we list Marie-Philip Poulin as a strength? Certainly when you have the top player on the planet, that's a strength. Poulin is a game changer. She's a clutch scorer, physically dominant, and the preeminent leader in hockey. At the backbone of the team, Ann-Renee Desbiens is one of the best in the world. She has game stealing potential, and should give Montreal a long runway to figure out the rest. Another key to Montreal's lineup they built in was versatility. Leah Lum and Dominika Laskova in particular have the ability to move throughout the lineup, but even up front, there's a group of players capable of playing all three positions.

It's pretty clear a lot will ride on Poulin, Laura Stacey, and Kristen O'Neill, and Montreal will have expectations to receive secondary scoring from Kennedy Marchment, Jillian Dempsey, Tereza Vanisova, Maureen Murphy, and Ann-Sophie Bettez up front. Those expectations with rookie Murphy should be tempered as she'll have an adjustment period learning to play at this level. The same can be said for Claire Dalton and Gabrielle David who could each play their way into bigger scoring roles as the season progresses. From the blueline, Montreal needs a healthy Erin Ambrose. Kati Tabin produced well in the PHF last season, and Dominika Laskova will be a power play fixture on the blueline, so there's certain to be some contribution from the blueline.

There are some question marks on the blueline. Tabin, Laskova, and Ambrose are a good start, but their blueline definitely lacks a bit of punch compared to other organizations across the league. Keeping veterans Catherine Daoust and Brigitte Laganiere should help ease the burden in terms of depth, and Madison Bizal was one of the young defenders with more upside entering the draft, but it's a lot to ask of her in the top four immediately. Utilizing Leah Lum on the back end might be another thing Montreal goes to more often. Their final defender is Mariah Keopple, who Montreal will likely give protected starts to as she learns the league. Overall, Montreal is going to be happy to have Desbiens holding down the fort, and they are also lucky to have a wealth of veteran faces who have two-way capabilities. Vanisova, Poulin, and O'Neill are three players that come to mind that can do some lifting defensively. 

Several things come to mind here. One is the way Montreal's leaders have approached younger players thus far. From what players are saying, the presence of Poulin, Stacey, Bettez, Desbiens, and Ambrose has eased any fears of joining a new team and new league, and immediately created a cohesive locker room. With short timelines all around, it could make a tremendous difference as the season gets underway. 

It was clear Montreal leaned heavily on analytics for their draft. The only issue with using analytics outside of IIHF competition recently is that stats were often incomplete or missing, ice times were rarely tracked, and other significant gaps existed in the past that would make analytics accurate. How will the reliance on analytics play out? It will be fascinating to watch given the limitations. The good news is, Montreal does have analytics staff in place, and moving forward, as statistics improve in professional women's hockey, they'll be ahead of the game in evaluating their own roster and opponents.