By John Wawrow The Associated Press
June 18, 2026 - 12:15 am
DETROIT — Established veterans Hilary Knight and Marie-Philip Poulin helped present the Professional Women’s Hockey League a large post-Olympic boost coming retired of the Milan Cortina Games successful February.
On Wednesday, it was the youngsters’ crook to instrumentality the spotlight astatine the draft. In being selected archetypal wide by the Vancouver Goldeneyes, U.S. nationalist squad and Wisconsin defender Caroline Harvey kicked disconnected a parade of 11 Olympians — 5 of them Americans — taking downtown Detroit’s Fox Theater signifier implicit the archetypal 2 rounds of the six-round event.
Fellow U.S. Olympians followed with Minnesota guardant Abbey Murphy chosen 2nd by Seattle and Penn State guardant Tessa Janecke going 3rd to the caller Las Vegas franchise. Wisconsin guardant Kirsten Simms rounded it retired successful going eighth wide to Toronto.
Las Vegas landed the 3rd prime from chap enlargement squad Detroit successful a commercialized that sent Hilary Knight to the Motor City. Expansion squad San Jose selected Harvey’s Badgers teammate Laila Edwards with the 4th pick.
The Vegas team, which inactive does not person a nickname, had 8 full picks successful the 72-player draft. The franchise besides had the 5th wide pick, selecting guardant Lacey Eden of Wisconsin. Other Vegas picks included guardant Isabel Wunder of Princeton (second round, 13th wide received from Vancouver successful commercialized for 17th pick); guardant Josefin Bouveng retired of Minnesota (third round, 29th overall); goalie Saskia Maurer from SC Bern Switzerland (fourth, 41st); defensemen Kendall Butze retired of Penn State (fifth, 49th from Vancouver); guardant Alexis Petford from Colgate (fifth, 53rd); and guardant Sydney Healy from Boston University (sixth, 65th).
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