Lou Orlando
After consecutive last-place finishes in the PWHL, general manager Pascal Daoust knew that changes needed to be made by the New York Sirens this past offseason.
“Only stupid goes twice with the same solution to a problem that you were not able to solve,” he said last week at the beginning of training camp.
The Sirens finished the 2024-25 season with 37 points, seven points out of the final playoff spot. The year before, in the inaugural PWHL season, New York was nine points in arrears of a postseason berth.
New York scored the fewest goals in the League in 2024-25 with 71, even though Sarah Fillier won Rookie of the Year honors after she tied for the PWHL lead with 29 points. They also surrendered the most goals (80) in the PWHL last season. That’s not a winning formula.
“We were cooking, and it was not tasting [how] it was supposed to taste,” Daoust continued. “So at the end, you’re not supposed to throw all the ingredients in the garbage. You just need to change how you’re cooking.”
Daoust didn’t throw all the ingredients in the garbage, but he certainly made major alterations to the recipe.
New York parted ways with four of its five top goal scorers in the offseason, including alternate captains Alex Carpenter and Ella Shelton. Though the Sirens avoid using the word “rebuild,” it’s clear there’s an effort to make the team younger and establish a new identity.
“It’s a turning of the page,” captain Micah Zandee-Hart asserted. “I think we made a lot of purposeful changes based on how the first two years went. With that being said, I think the underlying purpose and culture that we tried to build, we’re going to continue.
“It’s not a completely clean slate. We had a lot of things that we did like about this organization and this culture, so it’s kind of a continuation of that, but we’re trying to level up.”
There’s a sense among those in the organization that a strong foundation was built last season, despite the end result.
“We’ve put in the groundwork,” Zandee-Hart said. “Now it’s time to go.”
‘Aggressive, tenacious, hungry’ — Sirens aligned on team identity
Reflecting on the offseason overhaul, Daoust explained that every decision was made with the intent of building around key values.
As for what that identity is, the Sirens’ coach probably said it best.
“Aggressive, tenacious,” Greg Fargo explained. “We want to be first to pucks. We want to contest everything, and we want to be a team that keeps coming at you shift after shift.”
“We have a lot of speed, a lot of tenacity — a lot of people who are hungry to make the Sirens a team that people think about on the schedule,” Zandee-Hart added.
Speed, hunger, and tenacity are recurring talking points throughout the roster — from alternate captains Jaime Bourbonnais and Fillier to rookies Casey O’Brien and Kristyna Kaltounkova.
“It feels like everyone’s hungry for more than just last place this year,” Fillier remarked. “And I think our draft class has really hopped on that, too, of just being hungry to hunt down teams and scrap for points.”
“If I’m being completely honest, I don’t think that we really had meetings outlining exactly that,” said Bourbonnais. “I feel like that’s just the vibe that we’re getting on the ice.”
The Sirens made nine selections in the 2025 PWHL Entry Draft. Eight will be with the team in 2025-26.
A pair of first-round picks, Kaltounkova (No. 1 overall) and O’Brien (No. 3 overall), headline a talented rookie class that should provide a fusion of youthful energy up and down the lineup.
“We have a good combination of veterans that were here last year, and also a lot of new players that are coming in kind of fresh,” noted Zandee-Hart. “So I think that creates the perfect environment to hit the ground running on the same page, because you have these people coming in with a fresh perspective.”
The Sirens preseason offered a peek into the high-flying talent and youthful exuberance they have this season, especially in a 6-2 win over the Minnesota Frost last week. O’Brien had three assists, playing on a line with Fillier, who recorded a hat trick as part of a four-point outing. Second-year goalie Kayle Osborne looked the part of a No. 1 ‘tender, stopping 25 of 27 shots against the two-time defending Walter Cup champs.
Sirens set sights on first playoff berth in franchise history
Last spring, Bourbonnais watched her partner — Ottawa Charge forward Emily Clark — help her team reach the PWHL Final, where they lost in four games to the Frost. It was a little glimpse of what Bourbonnais and the Sirens missed out on their first two seasons.
“I love New York. I love that logo,” Bourbonnais said in a May interview. “I want to make the playoffs and win a championship there.”
It’s a sentiment many Sirens players are emphasizing as they head into the 2025-26 campaign.
“I think we have high expectations,” Fillier stated in training camp. “I signed a two-year extension because I think we have something good here that we can build and hopefully go chase after a championship.”
“I do feel like we are really big contenders this season,” Bourbonnais added.
There’s now eight teams in the PWHL, and the expansion franchises in Vancouver and Seattle won’t be pushovers. The League maintains its four-team playoff set-up, so the Sirens have their work cut out for them.
“I’m determined to make this fan base just as proud as I am to be a Siren,” proclaimed Zandee-Hart, a British Columbia native who turned down an opportunity to be made available to Vancouver in the PWHL Expansion Draft, opting instead to sign a contract extension with New York. “I know we’ve had a couple tough seasons, but I think there’s a lot to look forward to coming up, and I really want to be a part of it.”
If the Sirens are to achieve the success they desire, they need to make improvements internally — and it starts with the veterans.
“We had some conversations over the summer where it was like, ‘Hey, what did we like? What did we not like? What do we want to continue?'” Zandee-Hart disclosed. “We all had a pretty good idea of what we’ve seen work in the past, what didn’t work in the past — like maybe last year — but what we want to see from this group, and how especially the veterans can bring kind of that energy and set that tone for the younger players coming in.”
“I feel like last year we got in that (nine-game) losing streak (from Jan. 31-March 5), and it was hard to claw our way out of it,” Bourbonnais acknowledged. “This year, we just need to bring each other up a little bit more if we do get in a slump like that. We’re gonna lose games. We know that. But I feel like our resilience needs to be a bit better.”
It doesn’t hurt to add a couple of rookies with championship experience. O’Brien co-captained a dominant University of Wisconsin program, claiming her third NCAA national title in 2024-25 to wrap up a stellar five-year collegiate career. Sirens fourth-round pick Maddi Wheeler (No. 27 overall) enjoyed two of those championships before tranferring to Ohio State University for her final season.
So what was the key to Wisconsin’s success?
“I think creating family off the ice is a huge thing,” O’Brien shared. “Once you know everybody in the locker room wants to be there and has bought into the same goals, it makes everything on the ice so much easier. And I think we’re already off to a great start here.”
It’s everything you’d want to hear from a team that’s looking to avoid a third straight last-place finish.
But ultimately, talk is cheap. The product on the ice will determine whether or not New York’s reformed identity leads to brighter days.
