The New York Sirens’ inaugural season was one of several highs and lows. The greatest of these highs was certainly their opening day shutout of the Toronto Sceptres that ushered in this new era of women’s professional ice hockey. Following this landmark moment for the PWHL in front of an enormous TV audience, New York would only win 8 of the next 23 contests, and only 4 of those in regulation. This lack of success in the win column, combined with a -14-goal differential on the season, was indicative that a major change was due somewhere in the team’s hockey operation (this and all subsequent offseason recaps will focus on the on-ice product).

               The first action taken by New York’s executive team was the relief of Howie Draper behind the bench as the team’s head coach. To Draper’s credit, his 20+ year career as the head coach of the University of Alberta’s Women’s hockey team is truly remarkable, having won eight national championships. In watching most of New York’s games last season, the team was not as bad as their record implied, and they did have superstar performances from the likes of Alex Carpenter, Ella Shelton, and Jaime Bourbonnais who all managed to flourish in Draper’s system, in addition to a pair of phenomenal seasons from Corinne Schroeder (Damien did an entire article about her) and Abigail Levy. The downfall that led to Draper’s exit, and what New York will look to improve upon for the 2024-25 season is the overall performance of their depth players. Greg Fargo will be the man tasked with this project following 12 seasons at Colgate University. To Fargo’s credit, Colgate collected 9 consecutive winning seasons prior to him accepting this job with the PWHL. In the program’s 11 Division I seasons before Fargo, the team only had two winning seasons in that time span. Based on our NCAA draft eligible scoring aggregates, Colgate had 10 Star+ scoring players during the 2023-24 season, indicating that his systems are impactful.

               The brunt of New York’s on-ice personnel changes and upgrades this season came through their haul in the draft. First and foremost, they selected Sarah Fillier. Pascal Daoust, much like every NHL GM when I do these, doesn’t get credit for making the obvious selection at first overall. That said, Fillier is a transcendent goal scorer, having scored 30 goals in 29 games for Princeton, making her the first woman to record over a goal-per-game pace in the NCAA since Loren Gabel for Clarkson in the 2018-19 season (and I assure you Gabel’s low point totals in the PWHL last season were system-based and not individual based). In addition to the Fillier selection, New York bolstered its forward depth with the selection of Noora Tulus, a longtime star in the SDHL who recorded 61 points in 36 games a year ago for Luleå HF. To contextualize a pair of PWHL equivalents who have similar age, scoring history, and experience in the league, New York can expect Tulus’ impact to be somewhere between other European imports Kateřina Mrázová and Denisa Krizova.

               Looking to the blue line, New York used a similar strategy to their forward group by way of adding both an SDHL and NCAA player in the first three rounds of the draft. Maja Nylén Persson is an enigma to evaluate how she will impact or translate to the PWHL, as the women’s professional game has changed significantly since Sydney Morin recorded 65 points in 36 games for HV71 during the 2020-21 season in the SDHL. Over the next three seasons, the only defender with a similar two-way impact to Nylén Persson has been Jenni Hiirikoski who, as a 37-year-old imitating the Sergei Mozyakin career arc of playing in the Americas, can’t be compared to anyone in the PWHL, makes it difficult to forecast how substantial of a boost she can provide to this unit. Conversely, Ally Simpson joins this New York team after scoring 34 points in 40 games for Colgate last season, most likely playing in an incredibly similar system because Greg Fargo.

               Overall, New York has greatly improved its roster talent and scoring potential via the draft. With the four selections mentioned above, and knowledge of Fargo’s Colgate women’s hockey team from a year ago, this team will likely commit to the 1990’s Pittsburgh Penguins philosophy of the best defense is a good offense. In a league where the average save percentage is 92.2% this strategy is great for the growth and expansion of the game to a new TV audience looking for excitement. For New York, Schroeder and Levy were leaned a lot heavily last season, and they will be leaned on a lot again this season, but with the moves Daoust has made, their efforts should be more worthwhile once the goals start coming in bunches on the other end of the ice.