Seattle Torrent player leadership conducted one final media availability a mere twelve hours following their final game of their inaugural season. While deep reflection is still to come for most, there were a lot of topics and common trends top of mind for captain Hilary Knight, and alternate captains Alex Carpenter and Emily Brown.

Knight: Incredibly proud of the group to be a part of the first. Whenever we grow in newness and expansion there are a lot of intangibles that are difficult to overcome, but I thought our group rose to every occasion regardless of what kind of adversity that we faced. I’m really excited to be representing Seattle and build something outstanding here. It’s a testament to the type of people we have in the room and really excited that we built a solid foundation from a culture standpoint. It's no mistake that we were at the bottom of the standings, so looking forward to next year, finding ourselves a little bit higher up in a playoff spot will definitely be the utmost priority.

Carpenter: It was definitely a long season. It's always hard coming into a new place and we had 20-however-many-people do that. We had to put together an entirely new group, in a new building, with new fans. It's always a challenge, but extremely proud of what this team put together. It might not look that way from an outside perspective, but this group has grown a lot over the past year. You can see in our play. Every game we got better.  Obviously, there's ups and downs throughout the season, but you can see from the first time we stepped on the ice together to the last game last night, how much growth every player has had.

Brown: You try and stay in the moment when the season's happening, but when I look back at this year and kind of the whirlwind of my experience being picked in expansion, kind of getting thrown into Seattle was one of the best things that happened to me. I wasn't really sure what to expect. A non-traditional hockey market coming from Minnesota, growing up there, and it sounds cliche, but Seattle's just blown me away. It truly set a new precedent for hockey and fans and the culture here, and it's just been an awesome experience in the most unexpectedly best way.

Knight: I think all areas. We ran into some difficulty generating offense. Sort of hit the end of the stretch there we had a lot of injuries that didn't help either, but regardless, everybody sort of had the same schedules. We saw the Olympic break, people were here grinding, and we're just finding ways to have a bigger presence when we're on the ice together. We have a phenomenal roster, and it just didn't transpire the way that we all thought it was going to. At the end of the day, we need to find the back of the net and generate more offense. We need to have cleaner breakouts. Our neutral zones need to be cleaner. And all those things come into play when you're thinking of all the other adversities that you're accomplishing or going through off the ice.

Carpenter: Obviously, every season comes to an end, whether it's before or after playoffs, and this group will keep building in the next seasons to come.

Brown: The mentality I always try to live by is keeping zero, one, or two on the board of goals against, and there was definitely some games where that got a little bit more than that. Really just trying to focus on, game after game, making those marginal improvements. I feel like we tried to do that throughout the year and keep goals to a minimum, but also definitely growth to be had. Throwing together a bit of a new team, just learning chemistry and just continue to do that throughout the off-season. Hopefully get some clarity on what this group looks like next year so that we can work on that and hit the ground running a little bit.”

Knight: When you think about what you want your room to look like and what that foundation is that you want to set and establish for the future, you always want to have a very safe space. My whole thing just with any room is making sure that everyone feels comfortable and confident to be their authentic selves. You're only going to bring out the best potential in one another if people feel confident, at the end of the day, to show up and want to show up every single day to do their job, and do more, and really buy into what we have going on here. It just speaks to the testament of character and quality of people that we have in this room, that genuine love and support of one another and excitement to come here every single day, put it all on the line, and then, afterwards, go hang out and do something else as humans. These rooms are tremendously special. It's something I love about team sports and something I love about hockey specifically.

Carpenter: I think just trying to complement Brown and Hill. We have three different personality styles, and I think that's the most important thing with a leadership group is being able to complement one another and feed off of one another.

Brown: I'm just taking what we've all learned from, whether it's different original six teams or college teams and just bringing it in together. We were really lucky. We had some great leaders in the room. I mean Hilary Knight is one of the best, so having her set the tone for it really got us going on the right foot.

Knight: I'm going to probably take a week off at some point which is really exciting. It would just be nice to heal up both physically, mentally recharge, rejuvenate and take some downtime. Then get back to the offseason and trying to build up the body to get ready for another season.

Carpenter: Definitely get a little rest in, a little vacation, and then get back in the gym and get back to work. It's never really a long time off but definitely enjoy some time around the Seattle area.

Brown: Hang out in Seattle until the end of the month, for sure, end of May, I should say. I want to get out to Olympic National Park. It's been on my bucket list. I've got a whole laundry list of hikes that I've been suggested that I'm going to start ticking off, so I'm excited for that. But, other than that, enjoy Seattle and things to do in Washington. Obviously would love to be in the playoffs doing other things but take advantage of the opportunity to be out here. Then head back and be in Chicago for a couple months and then head back to Minnesota for the bulk of the offseason process and then see what happens in the fall.

Knight: Before we even started, just the encouragement that we were receiving and to be able to come here in July and do that quick media whirlwind. It was just so much fun to see the excitement and genuine excitement of us being here. It's no small feat. We're at the bottom of the standings, and we're still selling out Climate Pledge Arena. That just goes to show the level of love and support that this city has for sports. And we want to do better. And we want to rise to the top of the standings so that we can reflect what Seattle city sports are all about. What's so special to me, personally, about Seattle is this is what I saw as being the future of women's hockey. And to finally experience that firsthand is so, so special and have a place where people feel welcome to be able to watch a sport that we all love and can share is so tremendous. That just speaks to Seattle. That's what it is. What an amazing opportunity to be a part of the first expansion team.

Carpenter: Yeah, definitely. It's been awesome to be here and we really enjoy it. With free agency coming up and expansion draft, if there is expansion, whatever’s going to happen in the next couple months, there's a lot of wait and see. I definitely would love to be back, but there's a lot of unknowns.

Brown: On the ice, we'd love quite a few more wins, and so that part was hard. But just the community, and knowing that the fan base accepts you and your worth isn't based just on your on-ice performance as a team. We were selling out open practices at the end of the year. It's just incredible and something I've never quite experienced. We talk a lot in the locker room, too, and I speak on behalf of our group. It just means a lot to have that acceptance and that grace as we figure things out, and, again, have bigger and better sights going into this next year.