New York picks F Sarah Fillier No. 1 in PWHL draft

Canadian forward Sarah Fillier, an Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion, was selected by New York on Monday with the first overall pick in the Professional Women's Hockey League draft in Saint Paul, Minn.

Fillier, 24, played four seasons for Princeton in addition to seeing regular duty with the Canadian national team. The Canadians won the Olympic women's hockey competition at the 2002 Games in Beijing in addition to earning gold medals in the IIHF world championships in 2021, 2022 and 2024. Canada took silver behind the United States in the 2023 world championship, though Fillier was selected the event's Most Valuable Player.

After logging a career-high 30 goals to go with 13 assists for Princeton in 2023-24, Fillier finished with 93 goals and 101 assists in 120 games with the Tigers.

Princeton coach Cara Morey recently said of Fillier, according to the Toronto Star, "She is a Connor McDavid, a Nathan MacKinnon. She's a (Marie-Philip) Poulin, a Hilary Knight, a Kendall Coyne Schofield. She's gonna be one of the best. It is a generational talent."

New York finished in last place in the inaugural PWHL season this year, winding up with five regulation wins, four overtime wins, three overtime losses and 12 regulation losses.

With the second overall draft pick, Ottawa chose Colgate forward Danielle Serdachny. Defender Claire Thompson, formerly of Princeton and most recently of Team Sonnet of the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association, went No. 3 to reigning champion Minnesota.

Ohio State players went Nos. 4 and 5, first forward Hannah Bilka going to Boston and then defender Cayla Barnes going to Montreal. Toronto completed the first round by selecting forward Julia Gosling out of St. Lawrence University.

Three more Ohio State players were chosen in the four-round draft. Montreal picked forward Jennifer Gardiner in the second round (11th overall), New York selected forward Gabby Rosenthal to open the fourth round (19th overall) and Ottawa added Stephanie Markowski with the 20th overall pick.

Three players were selected off of Lulea HF in Sweden.

--Field Level Media