PWHL Toronto makes Julia Gosling its first-round draft choose

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PWHL Toronto didn’t need to do a ton of homework in making its first-round choose, sixth general within the 2024 PWHL draft.

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London, Ont., native Julia Gosling could be very acquainted to common supervisor Gina Kingsbury and head coach Troy Ryan, having performed for that pair of their alternate roles as GM and head coach of the Canadian nationwide ladies’s hockey workforce.

Gosling is a goal-scorer at coronary heart, and supplies the type of protection Toronto could require if the workforce’s main scorer Natalie Spooner is to overlook any time within the upcoming season.

Spooner sustained a knee damage in Recreation 2 of the workforce’s PWHL semifinal collection in opposition to eventual Walter Cup champion Minnesota.

Spooner has undergone surgical procedure, and whereas the rehab timeline will not be identified, it might very effectively eat into the common season.

Gosling has an amazing launch and a penchant for scoring targets. It doesn’t damage both that Spooner has been a task mannequin of types for Gosling, who shares her mixture of a nostril for the online and even measurement (5-foot-11).

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Gosling scored 22 targets in her senior yr with St. Lawrence College final season, a complete that included seven game-winning targets which speaks to her means to attain not simply any targets, however huge targets for her workforce.

Gosling was the not the primary Canadian off the board and even the primary Canadian nationwide workforce member to be drafted. Each these honours went to Georgetown native and Princeton standout Sarah Fillier.

Fillier, who was named match MVP of the 2023 world ladies’s hockey championship held in Brampton, was the favorite to be the primary general choose. Solely the latest rent of long-time Colgate head coach Greg Fargo by PWHL New York had some suggesting he would possibly affect his new workforce to take a face a little bit extra acquainted to him in Edmonton native and Fillier’s Canadian nationwide workforce teammate Danielle Serdachny, who spent 5 years at Colgate.

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Ultimately, New York opted to stick with Fillier.

Toronto stayed near house for its second choose as effectively, choosing Milton native Megan Carter from Northeastern.

Carter will bolster an already loaded Toronto defence corps as she joins the likes of Renata Quick, Jocelyne Larocque, Kali Flanagan and Allie Munroe on Troy Ryan’s blue line.

Kingsbury and Ryan went again to offence with the workforce’s third spherical (18th general) choice, grabbing Cornell’s Patty Kazmeier winner Izzy Daniel.

Daniel, like Toronto’s first spherical choose Gosling, is a extremely expert offensive participant as her 21 targets and 38 assists final season with Cornell will attest.

Ottawa, choosing second general, grabbed Golden Purpose scorer Serdachny.

The Edmonton native scored that extra time winner for Canada on the world ladies’s hockey championship in Utica N.Y. in April, denying america a win at house.

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Serdachny joins an Ottawa membership already loaded with acquainted faces from nationwide workforce gamers similar to Brianne Jenner, Emily Clarke and Ashton Bell.

She’s additionally effectively acquainted with Ottawa head coach Clara MacLeod, who she performed for as an 18-year-old on the Canada Winter Video games the place Alberta gained gold in ladies’s hockey.

Minnesota, in a little bit of a shock, took Claire Thompson with the third general choose. The 26-year-old Toronto native was on New York’s inactive checklist this previous season however didn’t play as she was finishing her medical diploma.

The primary commerce of the 2024-25 low season belonged to PWHL New York and PWHL Boston. New York gave up its first choose within the second spherical (No. 7 general) together with its first choose within the seventh (No. 37) and closing spherical in trade for Boston’s second spherical choose (10), its third spherical choose (16) and its fifth spherical choose (28).

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New York winds up with an additional choose however have to surrender a high-end defender in Daniela Pejsova, who was half of SDHL Lulea’s prime defensive pairing together with Ronja Savolainen.

However the first actual shock of draft night time most likely didn’t come till the third spherical when Montreal, which took its first of two allotted five-minute timeouts to speak issues over in depth, earlier than choosing Abby Boreen, who really performed 14 video games with Minnesota however solely after finishing pharmacy college.

She wound up again within the draft and Montreal, trying so as to add a little bit little bit of grit to its workforce, chosen Boreen.

That opened the door for Toronto to seize Daniel.

mganter@postmedia.com

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