PWHL to hold 7-round player draft in June

The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) will hold its 2024 player draft in June.

The draft will be seven rounds, with as many as 42 players selected by the league's six teams, the PWHL announced on Tuesday. The league hasn't said exactly when or where the draft will be held.

The draft will kick off a busy summer of player movement in the PWHL, with a significant number of current players on one-year deals. They will be competing for roster spots with new players entering the league.

Players who are interested in entering the draft can declare with the PWHL between March 1 and May 8. Those who want to enter the league must declare for the draft in order to be eligible to be drafted or to sign as a free agent should they go undrafted. 

"The draft is the primary gateway to the PWHL and number one source of new talent," the PWHL's senior vice president of hockey operations, Jayna Hefford, said in a statement.

"The majority of the league's founding players were selected in the inaugural PWHL Draft, and we anticipate the level of play will continue to be raised across the league as teams make their picks in June."

The league held its first draft last September inside the CBC atrium in downtown Toronto. Ninety players were selected over 15 rounds, a much longer draft because teams needed to build their rosters from scratch.

Nearly all of those drafted players signed contracts to play in the league this season.

It might be a harder road for players selected in 2024, beyond the top picks. Each team has only 23 roster spots and three reserve players, with some of those spots locked up by players on multi-year contracts.

For those that don't make a PWHL roster, there aren't many options, assuming that player has completed