Seattle Torrent's roster in limbo for next season as expansion looms

The Seattle Torrent will celebrate the season with "one last hurrah," as forward Julia Gosling put it, at an Airbnb gathering next week.

During exit interviews on Sunday, the stars said the same things - Seattle surpassed their expectations, they love the group and they want to return.

But it's impossible to look more than a week into the future because no one is quite sure what the league will look like come November. Whether they want to stay put or not, another round of expansion could pull many inaugural team members to new markets.

No one's sure what that - or the draft, or free agency - will look like yet. Nothing has been announced, but there are strong indications big changes are coming.

"We're all at the mercy of this expansion and what those rules look like," said captain Hilary Knight, who signed in Seattle last summer on a one-year contract. "Everybody wants to come back, and I think that's gonna be the hard part - figuring out what that looks like.

"For me, personally, like I want to be here in Seattle, and hopefully I can find my way back. (That) is something that is top of mind, has been back of mind for a handful of weeks, as expansion rumors have come out. We'll see what happens."

The league planned to get to 12 teams before the expiration of its 2031 collective bargaining agreement, and it appears to be getting a big head start. The PWHL could double between its second season and its fourth, from six teams to 12. At least two but perhaps four new markets are rumored to be joining this summer - Detroit, Denver, and to a lesser extent, Chicago, are always in the mix. Quebec City, Halifax, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Hamilton are among the Canadian markets seemingly being considered. Washington D.C. set an attendance record during a Takeover Tour date.

"There's a lot of wait-and-see," said alternate captain and leading goal-scorer Alex Carpenter, who also signed a one-year deal with Seattle. "So (I) definitely would love to be back, but there's a lot of unknowns."

Women's hockey is enjoying a surge of popularity, so perhaps now's the time to capitalize on interest. The PWHL wasn't born yet during the last Winter Olympics.

Knight was rarely, if ever, recognized while walking around Pike Place last July. Then she tied the gold-medal game between the U.S. and Canada and sent it to overtime. She's been on Saturday Night Live and walked multiple red carpets over the last few weeks, so now she's frequently stopped for chats and autographs.

"This is what I saw as being the future of women's hockey," Knight said, referring to Seattle. "And to finally experience that firsthand is so, so special."

Several, even many, of the players Seattle got attached to this season will likely head off to be ambassadors in new cities. The Inaugural Six markets know this pain already.

It might not just be the roster. General manager Meghan Turner wouldn't commit to any changes to the coaching staff, saying they're "going to look at everything."

"We've been assessing it throughout the year, as well," Turner added. "It's kind of an ongoing (thing). You're always taking a look at what you're doing well, what you can do better."

She assembled a group of women from all over - other PWHL teams, colleges, even a few playing in Sweden - who knew of each other, but often hadn't played together. Both expansion teams looked so good on paper. But familiarity ruled the day, and by and large, the teams wrecked by the expansion draft played better than the ones still coming together. Vancouver and Seattle finished sixth and eighth, respectively, in the eight-team league.

"Extremely proud of what this team put together," Carpenter said. "It might not look that way to the outside perspective, but this group has grown a lot over the past year."

They allowed the league's most goals at 92. They struggled to score at times. Injuries, scoring droughts, a big trade, long road trips, gaps for international play - they all hit the Torrent hard, but most of the teams dealt with similar issues.

The Torrent didn't have familiarity, a fully formed identity or even full use of their brand-new facilities. This weekend, coach Steve O'Rourke referenced their equipment manager having to take home players' workout gear to wash for two months because the "nice, shiny" machines in their new space weren't functioning properly.

"I don't think that's super productive, to look back and look at some of the things we couldn't control," Turner said. "We have to find ways to make it happen, regardless of our situation, and I think we could have done a better job at that this year.

"But a lot of credit to the players and how they adapted and stuck together throughout this year."

In the end, they didn't even claim the right to draft presumed No. 1 pick Caroline Harvey. It was in their grasp, but slipped away in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Montreal Victoire in Saturday's season finale. The Goldeneyes had the better track record after being eliminated from the playoffs, so Vancouver made off with the top pick.

Even though the Torrent never really entered the playoff hunt and were formally eliminated April 14, Climate Pledge Arena sold out for the second time in 13 games. The Torrent averaged nearly 13,000 fans in a building that seats 17,151 for hockey.

"We're the bottom of the standings, and we're still selling out Climate Pledge Arena," Knight said. "That just goes to show the level of love and support that the city has for sports. And we want to do better."

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.