The Montréal Victoire completed their second season in the PWHL atop the standings as one of the three teams who improved their points percentage year over year. Despite the incredible performance in the regular season, the Victoire fell short of a Walter Cup Final appearance largely due to facing a world class goalie peaking at the right time. Montréal’s recent run-ins with Northeastern’s Gwyneth Philips and Aerin Frankel aside, Danièle Sauvageau was proactive in the 2025 offseason to build a team that can hopefully overcoming elite goaltending in May but also keep them within reach of the expansion teams’ talent pools.

In the expansion draft, they saw the departures of standout rookies Cayla Barnes, Jennifer Gardiner, Abigail Boreen, and  Anna Wilgren. Barnes and Gardiner were star level producers for the Victoire last season, with P/60 outputs in the league’s 80^th percentile. Despite not reaching the star threshold, Boreen’s 1.81 P/60 was within 1% of Brianna Jenner and Gabbie Hughes, marking her as one of the league’s most efficient second line players as a rookie. Wilgren, while less of an impact player than Barnes, still posted a 1.09 P/60 from the blueline while contributing value in a second pairing role.

In free agency, the Victoire also saw the notable departures of Claire Dalton, Mariah Keopple, Mikayla Grant-Mentis, and Clair DeGeorge. Dalton had flashes of brilliance over two seasons in Montréal, but was never able to consistently contribute in a top-six role. Keopple was a fantastic stay-at-home, big minute defender for them and will be missed in her support of Ann-Renée Desbiens. Grant-Mentis, much like Dalton, had moments where her skills created meaningful and memorable impacts, but she couldn’t elevate her offensive output to more than a third-line role. Degeorge was a steady bottom-six forward for the Victoire during her tenure there.

Despite their subtractions, the Victoire were the biggest winners of free agency for the inaugural six teams. Shiann Darkangelo’s 2.33 P/60 with Ottawa last season was 15^th best in the league (comparable to Alex Carpenter and Michela Cava) while playing in a middle-six role. If Darkangelo continues to maintain her effectiveness in primarily defensive deployments, the Victoire will have filled a massive hole in their lineup. Hayley Scamurra joins to fill the bottom six role that was departed by Degeorge. After two decent seasons on the second pairing in Boston, Jessica Digirolamo will be looked to as a replacement for Keopple’s minutes, as well as some of Wilgren’s scoring. Maggie Flaherty will also replace some of Keopple’s minutes and assignments; however, these free agent acquisitions on defense likely won’t be able to fill the scoring void created by the losses of Barnes and Wilgren. To finish filling out their middle-six in free agency, Montréal added Jade Downie-Landry. Last season, Downie-Landry posted 1.10 P/60 while being one of the most defensively responsible forwards in New York.

The Victoire also made a notable trade with the New York Sirens this offseason: Kristin O’Neill and the 28^th overall pick for Abby Roque. For Montréal, this was a home run. O’Neill posted a 0.64 P/60 last season, playing in a variety of roles and deployments. Roque was a strong contributor on New York’s second line, posting a 1.55 P/60, while also being a viable two-way player. With strong deployments, Roque could push that output higher with Montréal in 2025-26.

At the draft, the Victoire immediately started working on replacing what was lost in the offseason. They selected Nicole Gosling at 4^th overall as a defender out of Clarkson (we had her at 4 on our board), and based on her 0.98 PPG in her last collegiate season, she will be looked to as their Cayla Barnes replacement. The second round saw them take Minnesota’s Natálie Mlýnková, whose 0.87 PPG, while playing in the WCHA, had her tabbed as one of the most highly touted players in this year’s draft class. Third round selection Skylar Irving of Northeastern seems to be a good pickup for the middle-six. Despite outproducing Mlýnková’s PPG with a 0.89 last season, the recent struggle of Hockey East players translating to PWHL success shows she has the puck moving ability to play at this level, but the lack of experience against top level teams like Wisconsin and Ohio State has me less sure on her immediate offensive impact at the next level. 5^th rounder Maya Labad tracks to play in a bottom-six role following a 0.71 PPG season at Quinnipac. Their final selection, Tamara Gaquinto, had a respectable season at Boston University, and will likely start out in a bottom-pairing or seventh-d type role to acclimate to the PWHL.

Overall, Montréal lost a similar amount of roster value to the rest of the inaugural six; however, they were able to retain the core of their team that had been so successful over their first two seasons. They were able to supplement their depth, while acquiring a star caliber forward in Abby Roque for the cost of a fourth line player. Their blue line probably won’t have the same offensive impact as it did in 2024-25, but the rest of the league is also objectively shallower through their lineups because of the expansion draft, making it less glaring of a weakness as several of the other teams’ roster holes. I expect the Victoire to be a playoff team again in 2025-26.