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A revamped Boston Fleet team is ready to chart out a new season
"We're really excited about some of the youth that we're bringing into our team."
A lot has changed for the Boston Fleet in the span of a few months.
Of the 26 players listed on Boston’s roster for the start of the 2025-26 PWHL season, just 14 of them skated for the Fleet this past season.
It was an eventful summer for Boston general manager Danielle Marmer, with the arrival of two new expansion franchises in Seattle and Vancouver taking the wind out of the Fleet’s sails.
Former Fleet captain Hilary Knight and promising rookie Hannah Bilka both landed in Seattle, while five defenders from last year’s roster in Sydney Bard, Emily Brown, Emma Greco, Jess DiGirolamo, and Sidney Morin all exited in free agency.
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Add in the departure of head coach Courtney Kessel after taking over as head women’s hockey coach at Princeton, and Marmer had her work cut out for her when it came to rework a roster that was already looking to right the ship after missing out on the postseason last spring.
But, with the Fleet set to open their third season on Sunday afternoon against the Montreal Victoire at Lowell’s Tsongas Center, Marmer believes that Boston — both anchored by returning top talent and buoyed by an influx of skilled rookies — has the means to reassert itself in the PWHL landscape.
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“We’re really excited about some of the youth that we’re bringing into our team,” Marmer said Thursday. “Obviously, we have veterans that we’re excited about and who we’re going to rely on in Megan Keller, Susanna Tapani, Alina Muller, Aerin Frankel and a few others. And then very excited about how we did in our draft and how they showed up to training camp.”
The Fleet’s ceiling this season might hinge on just how much production they receive from their six-player class from the 2025 PWHL Draft — with Marmer noting on Thursday that the Fleet managed to sign all of them to contracts before a new season gets underway.
Leading the way on that next wave of skaters is defender Haley Winn — taken second overall in the draft after a standout career at Clarkson.
“With the expansion draft and free agency — we needed to fill out our back end, and needed somebody who could play at a really high level,” Marmer said of Winn earlier this offseason. “And Haley, coming from Clarkson, which is an elite program, elite coaching staff, and then also her time with the national team — she has proven ability to play with the best players in the world, so she’s going to be able to come in right away and make an impact.”
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While Winn is expected to step in right away as a featured player on Boston’s D corps, the Fleet are also banking on rookie forwards like Ella Huber, Oliva Mobley, and Abby Newhook to add some scoring punch to a team that struggled to light the lamp last winter.
Further compounding Boston’s scoring woes is a future where the Fleet no longer have a superstar forward up front in Knight, who tied for the league lead with 29 points in 30 games last season.
For first-year head coach Kris Sparre, finding ways to draw more offense out of this roster stands as one of the top orders of business for a team that should have plenty of talent in place on defense and especially in net with franchise stalwart Aerin Frankel in place.
“Offense comes from a few different things. I think everybody kind of talks about it in a sense, where you have the puck on your stick, and you’re trying to find that great play to score a goal,” Sparre said. “And there’s some truth to that.
“But I think a lot of it comes off of the way you play without the puck, and we’re going to rely a lot on our forecheck to get us pucks back in the fun area of the ice, which is the offensive zone. And I think that’s an area of focus for us to help drive and generate offense.”
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While plenty of pressure will fall on Frankel to serve as the last line of defense for a reworked roster, Marmer believes that the Fleet still have enough star power in place among their skaters to drive play consistently.
Defender — and newly-appointed captain — Megan Keller will again be called on to generate offense from the blue line (five goals 13 points last season) and log heavy minutes.
For Keller, who has skated with Winn at times during training camp as part of a stout top pairing, stepping in as Boston’s next captain is a challenge that she’s ready for.
“One thing that I always pride myself on is being a hard worker, [bringing] work ethic every single day,” Keller said. “I’m not always the loudest in the room. But another thing is just being a great teammate. From youth hockey on, I feel like that’s something that has always been a huge part of my life, and I think bringing the group together — that’s how you’re going to win hockey games.”
Alina Müller (seven goals, 19 points) is expected to be a top offensive conduit entering her third PWHL season, while a line of Susanna Tapani, Jamie Lee Rattray, and Sophie Shirley has the makings of a 200-foot buzzsaw while out on a shift.
“I’ve been seeing a lot of season previews that people have done on different teams, and all these top 25 lists have come out, and I am blown away that Tap is not on those lists,” Marmer said. “I think she’s a top-10 player in this league. I think every time she’s on the ice, you notice her impact. She’s what drives the play for us every time she’s on the ice.”
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While the Fleet will open their new season back in their usual digs at Tsongas Center on Sunday at 1 p.m. , the franchise will once again take to the ice in Boston as well. After playing two home games at Boston University’s Agganis Arena in 2024-25, the Fleet will play four games in that barn this season — with the league looking to see if a two-venue model can attract more fans across the New England market.
Both of the Fleet’s games at Agganis Arena last season were sold-out.
“Whatever they decide, we’re gonna make the most of it,” Marmer said of the league’s call on the Fleet’s venues and this current two-venue model. “What I like about it is it allows us to bring in fans from a lot of different areas in Massachusetts. I grew up a Boston sports fan and I grew up in Vermont. So I think when you’re a New England sports fan or a Boston sports team, you represent, oftentimes, the entire region of New England. … I’m excited to see the fans that make it into downtown Boston.
“Maybe those are South Shore [fans]. Maybe there’s people from the Cape. Maybe those are Rhode Island fans who have a harder time getting up to Lowell, and vice-versa. We’re gonna have fans in Lowell coming from Southern Maine, Southern New Hampshire … I think it’s great, and whatever the league decides is best for our fanbase, I think we’re excited to do it.”
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