This is the second of a pair of articles looking at PWHL San Jose’s offense. Read the first article for a less-optimistic view.
Picture this: The violet, black, and gold parade confetti left on your bedroom floor from October still smells like champagne. Your new cat, Laila — whom you adopted to provide company to your aging dog, Buster — sits on a window sill watching birds fly around enjoying a classic 75-degree February day in California.
Billboards sporting the faces of Laila Edwards and Macklin Celebrini have replaced those with incomprehensible AI advertisements. The official Hockey East X account has turned into a Reichen Kirchmair highlights page. And Kristin O’Neill has joined the Bay Area tradition of captains wearing captains’ hats on gameday.
Earlier this month, The Ice Garden took a look at why PWHL San Jose fans should be concerned about the team’s offense. Now, it’s time to get excited.
San Jose’s forward group is young and unproven. It’s also extremely talented and filled with breakout candidates. While last season’s numbers don’t necessarily paint a pretty picture, they also don’t tell the full story.
Sophomore surprises
If PWHL San Jose’s offense is going to outperform preseason expectations, it will start with its three “sophomore” forwards: Anne Cherkowski, Natálie Mlýnková, and Maddi Wheeler.
Cherkowski
Cherkowski was taken ninth overall (round 2, pick 1) by New York in the 2025 draft. This offseason, she was acquired by San Jose in Phase 2 of the expansion process. She averaged over a point per game in her final three seasons at Clarkson University, including 23 goals and 29 assists in 2022-23. Her quick decision-making, accurate shooting and passing, and 200-foot game all seemed ideal for the PWHL. But Cherkowski finished her rookie season with just 2 goals, despite spending much of the season on the Sirens’ top line.
But take into account the fact that Cherkowski finished third among rookie forwards with 7 assists and was playing on the second-lowest-scoring team in the league, and suddenly her rookie season goes from disappointing to promising.
Mlýnková
Mlýnková, also a 2025 draft pick, has a similar story. After four seasons at the University of Vermont tearing up Hockey East, the Czech forward transferred to the University of Minnesota and didn’t skip a beat despite the more difficult competition.
Elite college numbers weren’t the only evidence of Mlýnková’s skill heading into the 2025 draft and her rookie season. She also had an impressive international resume stretching back to before the pandemic. At the 2025 IIHF World Championships, Mlýnková scored 4 goals in seven games. And in 2026, she became the first Czech woman to score 3 goals at a single Olympic Games, and added an assist.
In her PWHL rookie year, Mlýnková tallied 5 goals and 5 assists for the Victoire, making her one of two players now on PWHL San Jose to boast double-digit points in 2025-26. While those numbers may look pedestrian, her 10 points tied for ninth among rookies, and her 10.9% shooting percentage ranked sixth among rookies who had 10 or more shots.
Wheeler
Wheeler’s fourth-round selection by the Sirens in 2025 didn’t generate the same expectations as those for Cherkowski and Mlýnková. But she managed to match her draft classmates’ PWHL production with 3 goals and 7 assists.
Potential for 2026-27
While 10 points won’t put these players in rookie of the year conversations, it’s nothing to sneer at. Cherkowski, Mlýnková, and Wheeler all showed they can handle the physicality and speed of the PWHL. Now, the question is whether they can up their scoring. It’s reasonable to expect the answer to be yes.
The three forwards are all likely to feature on PWHL San Jose’s top-two lines to begin the season. They’ll be asked to produce the majority of the team’s scoring — especially while the four rookie forwards get up to speed. Though they may not all have a sophomore season breakout, it wouldn’t be surprising if one or two ended up with double-digit goals.
Rookie rockstars
Regardless of what position she plays, Laila Edwards will be relied on for San Jose’s offense. The 2024-25 NCAA goals leader declared for the draft as a defender. After her selection, general manager and head coach Troy Ryan seemed both deferential — “it’s a conversation you have with her” — and flexible — “it could happen within games that she plays a little bit of both” — about her position.
Splitting time as both forward and defender, the former Wisconsin Badger tallied 12 goals and 33 assists in 28 games in 2025-26 and put up 8 points in seven games as a defender at the Olympics.
Thanks in part to the energy generated by her six-foot frame, the strongest aspect of Edwards’ offensive game is her shot. It’s easy to imagine Edwards and Rory Guilday — a possible defensive partner also known for her size and strong shot — unleashing barrages from the blue line.
Rookie forwards Sloane Matthews (20 goals at Ohio State) and Lily Shannon (19 goals at Northeastern) will also be expected to immediately contribute. Ryan will hope he can unlock the 2024-25 form of Reichen Kirchmair (Providence), who had a disappointing 2025-26 season coming off her prior Hockey East Player of the Year campaign.
Ryan singled out Matthews as “one of [his] favorite picks of the draft.” The Buckeye recently participated in Team USA’s pre-WWC camp as one of eight non-Olympian invitees. Her PWHL-ready and largely mistake-free game warrants immediate consistent ice time for San Jose. She, alongside fifth-round selection Mckenna Van Gelder, also ranked among the best in college hockey in the face-off dot last season.
Kristin O’Neill
Of San Jose’s 12 rostered skaters, Kristin O’Neill is the only one to have been born in the 20th century, have played in the PWHPA Dream Gap Tour, and have won multiple world championships.
On the league’s youngest team, her combination of NCAA, professional, and international experience stands out. But despite her seventh-overall selection in the PWHL’s inaugural draft, O’Neill has yet to replicate her collegiate and PWHPA point-per-game output. O’Neill’s game is so much more than scoring — for example, her 272 face-off wins in 2025-26 ranked fourth. But reviving her finishing touch would affirm her as one of the top centers in the league.
The idea of O’Neill returning to a point-per-game player — or at least a major offensive contributor — is not far-fetched. At the 2026 Olympics, O’Neill scored 3 goals and registered a pair of assists in five games, including a shorthanded goal in the gold medal game. O’Neill is also the record holder for shorthanded goals at Cornell and has scored a jailbreak goal in each of the last two PWHL seasons. Perhaps playing for Ryan in the PWHL could have the same effect for O’Neill as playing for him on Team Canada. Or perhaps skating alongside energetic younger players like Cherkowski and Wheeler could reinvigorate O’Neill’s knack for offense.
The verdict
San Jose’s offense will be the team’s biggest question mark heading into its inaugural season. With some of its best players on paper having little PWHL experience, and the team likely to face the expansion-induced struggles of playing with a completely new roster, a difficult start on offense would not be surprising. Still, it’s easy to get excited about this collection of young, skilled skaters Ryan has acquired, headlined by Edwards.
If the gold medalist can regularly contribute from the blue line and at least one of San Jose’s sophomores shows real growth in her second year in the league, Ryan’s offense should be serviceable at worst. And for a team loaded with defensive talent, serviceable might be all San Jose needs.
