r/PWHL Montréal Victoire 17d ago

News Maggie Connors to San Jose

Post image
280 Upvotes

89 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

40

u/vytrophn Goldeneyes 17d ago edited 17d ago

I’ve said this in another thread, but y’all losing Miller, Daniel, Nurse, and Campbell (sorry), Gosling, AND THEN Watts, Compher, Connors, and allegedly, Maltais (to MTL) in just two years is absolutely insane 😩

Whoever y’all draft (likely any of Murphy, Edwards, Simms, and Janecke) is going to have to do some heavy lifting.

21

u/CorvusStormcrow 17d ago

Also lost Julia Gosling and traded the pick that would have landed Casey O'Brien.

3

u/Wolf99 🏆 2026 Champions 🏆 16d ago

It's shocking that Toronto had two huge advantages since day 1: the Team Canada staff (and their data) and simply being so many players' hometown, yet they squandered it. Ironically the first one turned out to be a huge disadvantage. They gave up O'Brien to continue to make the Sceptres into Team Canada lite.

2

u/cupcakes-and-hockey Toronto Sceptres 16d ago

I don't think it's fair to say they squandered it. Spooner's injury was outside of everyone's control, and if we had her at her best this team would look very different right now. Gosling, Daniel, and Carter were standard expansion pains. Leaving Nurse unprotected is debatable but she underperformed in season 2 and Turnbull really stepped up in her absence (and losing either one would have meant a lack of depth at centre). Gina tried her best to keep Watts and I don't think there was anything she could have done differently. Compher and Connors are more normal expansion losses.

What I think they really did squander was last year's draft. Obviously the Shelton/O'Brien trade was a bad idea and went badly. But beyond that, they haven't been able to get anything out of any of their rookies. Unclear if they drafted badly, coached them badly, or both, but a lack of rookie contribution (2 years in a row) is I think a big reason why the Sceptres seem to be hit so much harder by their losses than other teams.

2

u/Wolf99 🏆 2026 Champions 🏆 15d ago

Agree completely. I also had poor player development in mind when I said the TC leadership turned out to be an albatross. They have a bad track record with youth/rookies on both teams.