#also I don’t mean to call gosling out I just saw a Bluesky post of someone frustrated with her

[grantmentis]

Made a post the other day about expectations for rookies / new players in the league and how harsh it seems to be compared to the nhl and I have more thoughts on this. I haven’t like really properly researched this though so consider it off the cuff and full of assumptions

The PWHL draft is in a weird place right now because half of the people in the draft are like, grown, and have extensive experience playing in another high level league. Even the True Rookies are usually 22 as top prospects (as opposed to the nhl where most top prospects are 18) and played extensively in the ncaa where I’d say the level of play in some strengths of schedule is closer to the PWHL than any other hockey league is to the nhl due to the fact that there is just a lot more leagues the men are drawing from (obviously quite a of PWHL players have at one point played auroraliiga or EWHL or DEFL etc, but most either got drafted directly from the SDHL or NCAA or in the case of last year the PHF.) we only have One True Draft and half a season of those players in the league to go off of, and a decent % of those players have made an immediate impact, or at least be a good player, which makes it easy to go “hey why is my player not doing that.” I’ve seen this concern about Julia Gosling, for example, who of course gets the misfortune of being compared to Fillier and Thompson and Barnes

The PWHL schedule being so short doesn’t help either. A player struggling for five games in the nhl is just way less of a problem in terms of season impact than a player struggling for five games in the PWHL where that’s, like, a sixth of the season, even though it’s the same passage of time. This can definitely lead to fans being harsher

Still - I think it’s important to remember that no there is basically no ramp up to the PWHL and the ability to do what Fillier and Thompson are doing is rarer than it feels right now. We will probably see this more as the years go on and drafts become more “normal” that it’s less that Fillier or Thompson’s performance should be the norm for first rounders but more than they are exceptions and not the rule. Players right now barely get any time to get acclimated to their team before the season starts and the environment for training camp / preseason / where you’re fighting to have a job at all vs in the nhl where most are fighting between ahl and nhl, is very different. Teams are still figuring out their identity and their on ice systems, which makes it harder for players to adjust to a team that is still being defined. Additionally, teams don’t have the most coherent drafting strategy right now because of that nor do they have extensive scouting departments yet so they don’t have the tools to help a player adjust, either. For the franchise cornerstone players like Fillier, the team is going to build around her, but for someone like gosling going to a team where Nurse and Spooner and Watts have already claimed the top offensive roles, that’s not going to be the case. Finally, the true rookie players have to adjust to the pace of the game and what being a full time hockey player is, schedule wise. Just like you and me after college graduation, they are doing all this while learning how to be an adult.

The PWHL is already pretty “sink or swim” because there’s no place to go for development at the pro level while staying on contract, but there got to be some lenience to letting these players develop at the pro level and investing in them and that means they may not be producing for a while or make dumb mistakes and that’s pretty normal. Even the players coming in with professional experience need time to adjust, though they may be more equipped for the physical side of the game or the day to day grind of it all. And I’m not even getting into the “talent pool is quite a bit bigger than spots available especially if you’re a goaltender” thing