The Seattle Torrent will open their second training camp with 28 players, and 11 of them still need contracts. The roster, announced last Wednesday, features 16 forwards, eight defenders and four goaltenders. This is the smallest camp the league allowed this year. Seventeen players have signed for 2026-27, which leaves the unsigned group to compete for the last spots on a roster Seattle rebuilt after expansion.
Then comes the math, which is where camp gets tense. The PWHL caps teams at 19 signed players before camp, and Seattle currently sits with 17. Once the season starts, rosters grow to 23 active players plus three reserves. Three of those 23 must be goaltenders.
Last season’s Seattle Torrent carried 13 forwards, seven defenders and three goaltenders. Use that blueprint again and Seattle has three forward spots, two defender spots and one goaltender spot to fill, with reserve contracts as a fallback. The league is still debating whether to change the 23-plus-three format, so those numbers could move.
Camp has turned long shots into contracts here before. Seattle brought nine unsigned players to last year’s camp, four draft picks and five invites. The team signed four of them to complete the opening-night roster. The Torrent released two players–forward Olivia Wallin and defender Lily Yovetich–on Nov. 18, the day before teams had to submit rosters, two days after their final scrimmage.
A quick vocabulary note before the names. Here, unsigned draft picks appear in italics, and every other player without a signed marker appears in bold. Think of the italic names as draft picks still waiting on contracts and the bold names as the tryout group.
Forwards (16)
Signed: Lexie Adzija, Alex Carpenter, Gabrielle David, Lily Delianedis, Julia Gosling, Mikyla Grant-Mentis, Abbey Murphy, Emma Nuutinen, Theresa Schafzahl, Danielle Serdachny
Unsigned draft picks: Neena Brick, Emerson Jarvis, Grace Elliott
Every other unsigned player: Alexa Gruschow, Chavonne Truter, Marah Wagner
Seattle needs goals, and this is where the new faces could matter most. Hilary Knight and Hannah Bilka are gone. Carpenter and Gosling tied for the team lead with 20 points last season. The Torrent scored 64 goals in 30 games. The Torrent have ten signed forwards, leaving the remaining six to chase three openings.
Let’s start with Grace Elliott, because her awards list runs long. The 6-foot-2 forward won Canada West Player of the Year in 2025 and 2026. She averaged just over a point per game at the University of British Columbia (UBC), with 75 goals and 57 assists in 129 games. Seattle took her 38th overall. General manager Meghan Turner has said she wants Seattle to play “a fast, punishing, heavy game,” and Elliott’s size could help with the “heavy” part. The question is how quickly a U Sports star adjusts to PWHL speed.
Emerson Jarvis brings the “fast.” Turner named speed as a team need on draft night, and Jarvis calls her skating her biggest asset. The Edmonton native scored 17 goals and added 21 assists in 41 games as a Quinnipiac senior, more than double her goal total in either of her previous two seasons. She also played a season at Ohio State with defender Sydney Morrow.
Neena Brick’s path to Torrent training camp is a little less straightforward among this group of 2026 draftees. The Ottawa Charge drafted the Regina native in the fifth round, then Seattle sent Jenna Buglioni, its first-ever draft pick and the No. 8 selection in 2025, to Ottawa for her rights. That is a notable investment in a fifth-round pick. Brick scored 19 points in 35 games in her first season with MoDo Hockey of the Swedish Women’s Hockey League (SDHL), third on the team. She knows Hannah Murphy, Danielle Serdachny and Morrow from Colgate.
Alexa Gruschow is the veteran in the room, and her résumé has range. The 32-year-old center won most valuable player honors in the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) in 2017-18, scoring nine goals and 13 assists in 16 games for the Metropolitan Riveters. She has also played in the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) and with the then-PWHL New York team. The release lists her 2024-25 team, MoDo Hockey, rather than a 2025-26 club, so her most recent season remains a question mark.
For some, Chavonne Truter might be the least familiar name on the list, which gives her the most to prove. The 5-foot-11 forward from Uxbridge, Ontario, played at New Hampshire and most recently for MAC Budapest of the European Women’s Hockey League, according to Elite Prospects. She scored two goals and added nine assists in 33 games for New Hampshire in 2022-23.
On the other hand, Marah Wagner might be the most familiar face of the six. The Seattle native signed a one-year deal after last year’s camp, and now she has to earn another. She scored 14 points in 32 games for Skellefteå AIK in 2024-25. She’s also the only forward in the group who has been on Seattle’s roster.
Defenders (8)
Signed: Emily Brown, Lyndie Lobdell, Noemi Neubauerová, Aneta Tejralová, Anna Wilgren
Unsigned draft picks: Gracie Gilkyson, Sydney Morrow
Every other unsigned player: Emily Zumwinkle
Expansion took Cayla Barnes, Megan Carter and Mariah Keopple. The Torrent have only five defenders signed. If Seattle carries seven again, two spots remain for three players.
Sydney Morrow looks like the safest bet of the three, and her numbers explain why. Seattle took her 14th overall, the highest pick among the 11 unsigned players, after a senior season at Minnesota in which she scored eight goals and added 30 assists in 39 games, second among NCAA defenders in both points and assists.
For context, Wilgren, whom Seattle protected in expansion, scored 10 points in 30 games last season. College numbers do not translate one-to-one, but Morrow’s offensive instincts could give the back end a different look after Barnes’ departure. She also knows the room: she played with Jarvis at Ohio State and with Brick, Hannah Murphy and Serdachny at Colgate.
Gracie Gilkyson arrives on an upswing. The fifth-round pick scored nine goals and added 18 assists in 36 games at Yale, up from four goals the year before, and she led the Bulldogs with 59 blocked shots on the way to Third Team All-ECAC honors.
Emily Zumwinkle has seen Seattle from the inside. She spent last season on the reserve list, then signed a 10-day contract for the final three games after the Torrent’s elimination. That makes her the only defender in the group with Torrent experience, which could help her in a fight for a reserve spot.
Goaltenders (4)
Signed: Carly “CJ” Jackson, Hannah Murphy
Unsigned draft picks: Gabriella Durante
Every other unsigned player: Julia Minotti
Goaltending is the most intriguing battle in camp, mostly because the Torrent have some big skates to fill. Corinne Schroeder left for San Jose during expansion, so Seattle has two signed goaltenders: Hannah Murphy, whom the Torrent protected in expansion, and CJ Jackson, who signed a two-year extension in June. Seattle carried three goaltenders on its active roster last season, so one of Durante or Minotti has a clear path to a place unless the Torrent bring in someone else. Two players, one probable opening.
Durante has the Olympic résumé. Seattle drafted her 62nd overall after she appeared in four games for Italy at the 2026 Olympics, where the team reached the quarterfinals. The Calgary native holds Italian citizenship, turned pro in Italy in 2024-25 and is listed with Real Torino. In 73 regular-season games with the Calgary Dinos, she posted a .917 save percentage and 11 shutouts.
Minotti counters with more recent college tape. She made 40 saves in a 3-2 overtime loss to Ohio State last October for St. Thomas, part of a heavy-workload graduate season in the WCHA where she ultimately appeared in 31 games and logged a season-high 47 stops against Wisconsin. She comes to camp straight from the college ranks, so her case rests on showing she can handle pro speed.
What comes next
Camp opens Nov. 18, after the Women’s World Championships in Denmark. The Torrent play two scrimmages against PWHL San Jose at Tech CU Arena on Nov. 29 and 30, then open the regular season Dec. 5 at the Vancouver Goldeneyes. Last year, Seattle made its cuts two days after its scrimmages. Six spots, give or take, and 11 players with a few days to make their case.
