With a lucrative multi-year contract in hand, PWHL star Sarah Fillier is chasing greatness
Four years ago, headlines called her "the next one" and "a rising superstar" in women's hockey.
At her first world championship inside a bubble in Calgary in 2021, then-21-year-old Sarah Fillier put up nearly a point per game as the Canadians won gold.
They were heavy expectations to place on a player who was still in college.
But four years later, no one can argue that Fillier hasn't lived up to the hype. No longer a rookie, Fillier is a bona fide star whose instincts, skill and hunger to get better put her in the sport's top echelon.
In her first season in the PWHL, Fillier tied American superstar, Hilary Knight, for the league scoring lead, putting up 29 points in 30 games for the New York Sirens. She was named the league's Rookie of the Year.
"Any time she's on the ice, magic will happen and magic could happen," the Sirens' GM, Pascal Daoust, said in an interview. "A game is never over when you have players like herself with a single shot that can change the whole rhythm in a game. It's a game changer."
This year could be Fillier's biggest yet. This summer, the Sirens signed Fillier to a two-year deal — the most lucrative one the league has seen yet, though the league doesn't release specific dollar figures.
With several players from last year's team gone via trade or expansion, the Sirens are now clearly built around Fillier, who will be bolstered by top draft picks such as Kristýna Kaltounková, Casey O'Brien and Anne Cherkowski.
The rebuilt Sirens are aiming for the team's first playoff berth, a mark the team missed despite a stellar campaign from Fillier.
The forward will also have a chance to earn her second Olympic gold medal on a Canadian national team where she's now a veteran.
And there's still room to grow.
"With Sarah, we're so impressed with obviously the speed she plays the game, the passion, the energy, all those things," said Troy Ryan, Team Canada's head coach.
"I still don't believe she's fully come close to what her potential could be. I don't mean that negatively — it's exciting that she's as good as she is. As much as she's been around our program, I think this year should be or could be, and we hope to be, probably the best year of her career."
Her short-term goals are obvious: Fillier wants to win the Walter Cup and defend the Canadians' Olympic title. Her long-term goal is even bigger. Fillier wants to be one of the best of all time, and to have her name mentioned in the same conversation as a player she's always idolized.
That's why she always tries to soak up as much as she can from that player every time they share a locker room.
"To be honest, I would love to be able to see my game come close to what Marie-Philip Poulin has done in her career," Fillier said in an interview with CBC Sports.
"She's the definition of greatness in our game in her clutchness and humility and everything. I think she's the benchmark for what you have to be to be great, and to be remembered as a cornerstone of the national team and of women's hockey."
Fillier leads rebuilt SirensWhile Fillier's first season was an individual success, the Sirens fell short of the comeback season many predicted after Fillier was picked first overall in the 2024 draft.
A mid-season losing streak and injuries were two of the factors that ultimately sunk the Sirens' season.
With the expansion draft forcing every team to expose good players, Daoust described it as "an opportunity to look at ourselves in the mirror and try to be honest."
"Honesty comes sometimes with tough decisions — tough decisions that sometimes we were not even in control to make," Daoust said. "But some other tough decisions that we felt were for the good of the organization after chatting with players, staff during the exit meetings. So to me, it was a great opportunity to change the angle that we were aiming at."
After a summer of change across the PWHL, perhaps no team has changed more than the Sirens.
Out of the top six forwards who lined up for the team's first game of the season last December, only Fillier remains.
Starting goaltender, Corinne Schroeder, was lost to expansion Seattle, while top defender, Ella Shelton, was traded to Toronto for the pick used to draft O'Brien.
While Fillier acknowledges that a big part of the team's core was lost to expansion, including her former linemate, Alex Carpenter, she also feels excited by the players who were drafted in June. On the entry draft's floor in Ottawa, she found herself envisioning her team's future lineup.
O'Brien is coming off one of the most prolific college careers of all time, having just won the Patty Kazmaier Award as the top player in women's college history with Wisconsin. She could slide into the slot vacated by Carpenter as the team's top centre, should the coaching staff opt to play Fillier on the wing.
Then, there's Kaltounková, a power forward who has a great shot. The first European player to go first overall in the draft will get to lineup alongside Fillier, after battling against each other in the Eastern College Athletic Conference when Fillier was in college.
Fillier also pointed to second-round pick Cherkowski, a forward from Clarkson University who can play up and down a lineup, as a sleeper pick.
With Fillier on board for the next two seasons, she can build alongside the Sirens' new core.
It's a departure from last summer, when Fillier signed a one-year contract a couple weeks before training camp, not knowing what the next season might bring. Now, she has "a great sense of security."
"I think it just lets you develop more relationships and really help steer the ship collectively as a group," Fillier said. "I want to be part of building something great, which I feel like New York has a really good foundation to do that."
Embracing pressureWith the contract out of the way, Fillier has been focusing on her explosiveness in her off-season training. Quickness is a big part of her game, so maintaining her foot speed will always be a priority.
She'll head to a Hockey Canada training camp at the end of this month.
With three national team training camps and four Rivalry Series games scheduled before the Olympics begin in Italy in February, one challenge for the Canadian staff will be figuring out who fits best alongside Fillier.
The coaching staff has even experimented with Fillier and Poulin together, as they've looked for the right fit for Poulin, too. But that seemed to weaken the team's depth.
The training blocks could be a key part of unlocking even more from Fillier, Ryan said.
"I think some players that are really, really good at a young age, they know they're good, they're confident," he said. "But I don't believe they fully understand how good they could be. I think Sarah is just going to start to figure that out."
A new contract, on top of an Olympic spotlight, can come with added pressure. Both Ryan and Daoust see Fillier as being ready to embrace it.
"Some people will probably hold their stick too tight when there's pressure," Daoust said. "I will say that she is the type of player who will smile on the ice when the pressure is coming."
She knows she'll be expected to perform at a high level.
But it's nothing new for a player who's been in the spotlight since making the national team at 18.
"I feel like it wouldn't be exciting if there wasn't pressure to perform," she said. "In my head, I'm just excited to know that everything I do this year is going to lead right into next. It's almost more motivating at a point for me to know that I'm here for two years. I want to make it great."
cbc.ca
