The Victory Press

Welcome to our live coverage of the 2026 PWHL Draft. This post will be laid out like a live blog, with new content being added to the top of the page. Refresh often! We'll have live updates, analysis, and reactions from onsite in Detroit. You should be able to click through using the index. Updates will be timestamped in Eastern Daylight Time. 4:30pm – Hello! Hi everyone! Kirsten here.

The 2026 PWHL Expansion Player Distribution Process is entering its final week, and the league will gradually transition into a much more standard off-season. Before that happens, Phase 4, a 27-hour window that begins on Sunday, will mark the final stage centred around expansion teams, and the last point at which players whose rights are already held by a team can be moved without a trade.

With Phase 2 of the PWHL Expansion Player Distribution Process coming to a close, here's a look at what's happened so far and what to expect this week as Phase 2 wraps up and moves into Phase 3. Fifteen players have signed as of publication, meaning that five more players will be acquired by expansion teams on Monday to complete this phase of the process.

Kayle Osborne of the New York Sirens shakes hands with Seattle Torrent goaltender Hannah Murphy.

There's a special type of summer day in Montreal that makes the city come alive. Endless blue skies stretch above an array of vibrant greens, and it feels like anything is possible. Saturday, as an estimated 20,000 people poured into downtown streets and the Quartier des Spectacles to celebrate the Victoire's Walter Cup Championship, was one of those days. "We turned the corner onto Sainte-Catherine Street, and I started to cry," said Ann-Renée Desbiens.

The six-phase PWHL expansion player distribution process is official underway, with existing teams finalizing their protection strategies and expansion General Managers preparing to make their foundational acquisitions. The league has released an overview of the process, as well as the complete rulebook and an explanatory video.

A deflected centering pass from Abby Roque beat Gwyn Philips and that's all that Montreal needed to secure the Walter Cup on Wednesday night in Ottawa. To put a bow on it, Roque added a late beauty of a jailbreak goal, first-ever three-time Walter Cup champion Maggie Flaherty scored from distance and Lina Ljungblom stole a puck deep in the zone and wrapped it past a sprawling Philips to secure the 4-0 win and championship for the Victoire.

As had been rumored, the fourth expansion team added for the 2026-27 season is San Jose the PWHL announced Tuesday. The introductory press conference is scheduled for today at 12:45 P.M. Pacific / 3:45 P.M. Eastern at T-Mobile Arena. It can be watched via livestream on the PWHL's homepage or YouTube channel. The team is expected to play at SAP Arena, home of the NHL San Jose Sharks. The training facility is set to be Sharks Ice at San Jose.

With an overtime win on Saturday, Montreal is just one win away from lifting the Walter Cup. After falling 3-2 in overtime to open the Walter Cup Finals, Ottawa Charge head coach Carla MacLeod emphasized that it wasn't a one-and-done. But with the Victoire now carrying a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series, Monday's game three may well become one. The mental game: Once again, MacLeod reviewed her team's performance with an insistently positive tone.

Montreal took a 1-0 lead to open the PWHL Walter Cup Finals on Thursday in Laval, Que., earning its first ever series-opening win courtesy of Abby Roque's facemask, two-and-a-half minutes into overtime. The teams went scoreless through the first period, with Ottawa leading 10-5 in shots, having maintained the momentum after a power play roughly five minutes in.