{"id":714062,"date":"2026-06-04T07:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714062\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T07:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:42:12","slug":"pwhl-announces-player-protection-lists-for-phase-1-of-2026-expansion-roster-building-process-pwhl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714062\/","title":{"rendered":"PWHL ANNOUNCES PLAYER PROTECTION LISTS FOR PHASE 1 OF 2026 EXPANSION ROSTER BUILDING PROCESS | PWHL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK AND TORONTO\u00a0(June 3, 2026)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League (PWHL) has\u00a0confirmed\u00a0protection lists from its eight existing teams, with each\u00a0team\u00a0protecting three players as part of\u00a0Phase 1 of\u00a0the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepwhl.com\/en\/news\/2026\/may\/27\/pwhl-announces-2026-expansion-player-distribution-process\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Expansion Roster Distribution Process<\/a>.\u00a0With protection lists\u00a0finalized\u00a0at today\u2019s 5 p.m. ET deadline,\u00a0the league\u2019s four expansion teams in\u00a0Detroit, Hamilton, Las Vegas,\u00a0and San Jose\u00a0will\u00a0begin to build\u00a0their 2026-27\u00a0rosters\u00a0from the remaining pool of eligible players.\u00a0Phase 2\u00a0of the process\u00a0begins\u00a0on Friday,\u00a0June 5 at 12 p.m.\u00a0ET with the Expansion Team Foundational Signing Period, during which each expansion team will add five players to its roster.<\/p>\n<p>PROTECTION LISTS<\/p>\n<p>Boston Fleet:\u00a0Aerin Frankel (G), Megan Keller (D), Haley Winn (D)<\/p>\n<p>Minnesota Frost:\u00a0*Taylor Heise (F),\u00a0*Kelly\u00a0Pannek\u00a0(F), Maddie Rooney (G)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Montr\u00e9al Victoire:\u00a0Ann-Ren\u00e9e Desbiens (G), Marie-Philip Poulin (F), Laura Stacey (F)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>New York Sirens:\u00a0Sarah\u00a0Fillier\u00a0(F),\u00a0Krist\u00fdna\u00a0Kaltounkov\u00e1\u00a0(F),\u00a0**Casey O\u2019Brien (F)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ottawa Charge:\u00a0Rebecca Leslie (F), Gwyneth Philips (G), Ronja Savolainen (D)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Seattle Torrent:\u00a0*Alex Carpenter (F), Hannah Murphy (G), Anna Wilgren (D)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Toronto\u00a0Sceptres:\u00a0*Renata Fast (D),\u00a0*Raygan\u00a0Kirk (G), Ella Shelton (D)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Vancouver Goldeneyes:\u00a0Sophie Jaques (D), Emerance Maschmeyer (G),\u00a0*Sarah Nurse (F)<\/p>\n<p>*Signed\u00a0during Phase 1\u00a0and protected<\/p>\n<p>**\u00a0Received\u00a0qualifying offer\u00a0during Phase 1\u00a0and\u00a0rights\u00a0are\u00a0protected<\/p>\n<p>During Phase 1 of the roster distribution process, each of the eight existing PWHL teams protected three players under contract for the 2026-27 season. Players on expiring contracts were eligible to sign with any existing team during this phase, with any signing automatically counting as one of that team\u2019s three protections.<\/p>\n<p>UP NEXT\u00a0\u2014\u00a0PHASE 2:\u00a0EXPANSION TEAM FOUNDATIONAL SIGNING PERIOD\u00a0\u2013 JUNE\u00a05\u00a0(12 P.M. ET) TO JUNE 8 (1\u00a0P.M. ET)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Phase 2 of the Expansion Player Distribution Process takes place from June 5-8 and allows each expansion team to build the foundation of its roster by\u00a0acquiring\u00a0five players through signings and, if necessary, a player selection process. Existing teams can lose a maximum of three players who are under contract for the 2026-27 season during this phase. Read the full rules\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepwhl.com\/en\/2026-expansion-player-distribution-process\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A complete\u00a0list of\u00a0player signings\u00a0and transactions\u00a0is available\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0official\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepwhl.com\/en\/transactions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PWHL Transactions Page<\/a>.\u00a0To see the full\u00a0overview of the status of PWHL player contracts\u00a0ahead of Phase 2,\u00a0visit the PWHL Contract Guide\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepwhl.com\/en\/2026-expansion-player-distribution-process\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK AND TORONTO\u00a0(June 3, 2026)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Professional Women\u2019s Hockey League (PWHL) has\u00a0confirmed\u00a0protection lists from its eight existing teams,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-714062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}