PWHL expansion: Seattle, Vancouver GMs franchises speak on 'puzzle pieces' of creating a roster in a short time frame

A month after the PWHL announced that the women's hockey league will expand to franchises in Vancouver and Seattle, things are moving quickly.

Last week, the PWHL announced the new general managers for the expansion franchises. The team in Seattle will have Meghan Turner, a former assistant GM with the Boston Fleet, as the team's first GM, while former Princeton women's hockey coach Cara Gardner Morey will take the helm in Vancouver.

The turnaround for Turner and Morey's first major obstacle — putting together their franchises' inaugural rosters — is shockingly fast. Turner was announced as Seattle's GM last Wednesday, with Morey announced on Friday; by next Wednesday, the two will be signing their first players.

"I think fit is everything, so we're certainly going to be reaching out right off the bat to players we would really like to bring in, immediately," Morey said in an introductory press conference on Friday, adding that she would be starting with players at "the top of the priority lists."

Both GMs said in Friday's press conference that fit was going to be important when putting together a team, describing the process as a "puzzle." The two gave similar answers about the traits that they both value in a team — physicality, speed, leadership, team culture.

But Turner admitted that the scouting and recruiting process was taking place in a "tight window," and that she had been "leaning on" the league as a resource.

"I can't give all my secrets away," Turner joked in response to a question about the exclusive free agency window, before adding, "Certainly I think it's something that I'll be looking to take advantage of in terms of building out my roster and trying to get a feel for the players and try to lock in some that I am really excited about."

Turner and Morey both said that they are in the process of hiring a head coach, another major obstacle in building the franchise.

The league's six inaugural franchises will hand over their lists of protected players by Tuesday. Teams can protect up to three players with those lists.

From Wednesday to Sunday, PWHL Vancouver and PWHL Seattle will have an exclusive signing window to sign select free agents from other teams, with signings announced as they are finalized. The expansion draft, where the two franchises will pick up most of their core players, will take place on Monday, June 9. Between the signing window and draft, teams are set to lose four total players.

An added wrinkle for the expansion teams is salary constrictions, which affect how the GMs will build their squads. Coming from college hockey, Morey said that the salary cap and the challenges it poses was something she was "excited about."

"It just becomes another puzzle piece as you're creating this roster. So many different factors to consider, but I think it's going to be really fun to kind of play with that salary cap and make sure people are getting their market value," Morey said. "It just becomes like another interesting thing that I'm excited to learn."

Turner, who has had more experience with the PWHL's salary restrictions, said that it will affect how she goes about building a team.

"Talk about a puzzle," Turner said of the salary cap. "If we could just get every player we wanted, obviously we would, but the salary cap adds an element of complexity. And so I think it's just finding the right balance of players, not just in terms of the dollar amount but also the contract term, and being able to strategize and make decisions that are right for the organization, obviously in the short term and also looking ahead."

Even with the turnaround, Morey said that this is something she has been looking forward to from the beginning of the interview process.

"I started thinking about it on the first phone call," she said of building her roster. "That's what's exciting about this position, is building your own team, and this fantasy that you could almost choose anybody you want, which we know that's not quite the way it goes, but I started thinking about it as soon as I started exploring this position ... Building rosters and building puzzle pieces and creating the culture is something I'm really, really excited about."