Women's Hockey Spotlight: Will Amanda Kessel play in the PWHL?

you're locked on NHL your daily podcast on the National Hockey League part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day it is undoubtedly a great week if you are a part of the Kastle family specifically if you are Amanda kessle hi my name is Erica Lala bringing you another women's hockey Spotlight as part of lock on NHL I am of course also the host of locked on Kraken so make sure you give us a listen but I want to talk to you about Amanda kessle if you're not famili familiar with Amanda kessle then you should be now Amanda kessle has been a fantastic player she came back from several um concussion setbacks that she suffered in college to go on to be a multiple time Olympian a gold medalist with the 2018 team and now she has recently this week just this week been promoted to uh the general the assistant general manager with the AHL wils bar Scranton Penguins as well as the Penguins manager of minor league operations now Amanda Castle has been with the Pittsburgh Penguins Organization for about a year now and um has been doing great Kyle dubas had great things to say about her specifically around the time that she was drafted to pwl Montreal team um at 41st overall now I want to stop there for a minute because if you're familiar with Amanda game then you know she's not a 41st overall pick she should go much higher in any draft if you're not familiar with her game let me just put it this way you might have heard that after a 20-year drought uh Team USA USA hockey on the women's side won their first Olympic gold medal back in 2018 pong Chang at the time uh we still had the Laro Twins playing hockey and we had the oops I Did It Again goal to win gold for the United States I'll just say this the United States would not have been in a position to win in a shootout once again against Canada if Amanda kessle had not buried her shootout goal she has been fantastically consistent for the United States underrated I think because of some of the bigger draws and the bigger names not necessarily in my opinion the better players hot take take it or leave it um but Amanda Castle has been that girl that woman for USA hockey for quite some time she also played a little bit in the nwhl with the riveters now she was in and out um of her season with the ribs because of her commitments to um USA hockey and I think also kind of some lingering injuries at the time Amanda kessle did not play in the pwl last year so you didn't see her get one of those core designations that we talked about with Sarah nurse or um even or like a lease deck line for Minnesota Kendall coin scoffield Etc but in my estimation she is absolutely on par with those players some of them have been her teammates some of them have been her longterm uh you know opposition for Hockey Canada but Amanda kessle is definitely worthy of that so why did she go 41st overall well I think a little bit of this has to do with her prior commitment to Pittsburgh and we do know going into the P whl's inaugural season at the top of this year that the everything from the collective bargaining agreement to how the league was set up and the fight for this league to get going was all in service of making this league not only the one women's professional hockey league but the one League where women could be paid as Pros now that being said we've talked about the contracts before and there is a minimum or excuse me a maximum of six players that can make a minimum of I believe it's around 80k uh somewhere around there and those are guaranteed contracts now 80k for a a women's league definitely puts them in the higher estelon of what we've seen in women's hockey in the past and that's a minimum guarantee so effectively if you look at the WNBA contracts the the it we're kind of looking at like the veteran core salary which is about 122 uh K and um you know so still behind the WNBA but that's only six players that can make that there are also designations in the WNBA um where you really just can't afford to pay everyone at that amount and so the average salary is still much lower than what you would expect for a professional athlete and quite honestly even for professional women's sports where we see in the WNBA and especially the nwsl salaries continue to rise as more sponsorship dollars as more broadcast deals come to fruition so when it comes to Amanda kessle reading the tea leaves a little bit here and then also going off of some of what we heard after she was drafted did I think if you're pwh on Montreal you don't want to miss out on the opportunity to get Amanda kessle who had declared for the draft made herself available so was obviously interested to see what was happening but you also don't want to effectively quote unquote lose a draft pick or tap out financially by cing someone who might not be available for all pwl games now in the past in other leagues we've seen that leagues have worked with players they've even and we actually have seen this in the pwhl you might have players that are kind of part-time or um considered reserved players because of their commitments elsewhere and I'm not exactly sure where Amanda kessle falls on all of this but I just want to give you this information to kind of understand what we're seeing and what could potentially be either kessle joining the pwl uh maybe deciding not to join the pwl or is there something in between we just don't know yet but I want to give a stick tap over to the hockey news because they followed up with um Danielle sa sveno who is of course is the pwhl Montreal general manager and this is a quote that was given to the hockey news quote I was made aware of Amanda kessell's nomination along with the Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle dubas is declaration to the fact that the decision to pursue her playing career belongs to her and that he will support her decision I hope to see Amanda in a Montreal uniform this upcoming season so that all pwl fans can appreciate her Talent on the ice that makes two of us Danielle I am dying to see Amanda kessle cut it up in this league I don't think we've ever really seen her tap out her full potential in a professional league and as I've already mentioned at the international stage unfortunately I think she gets overshadowed by other names that in my estim imation at least are not better than her at hockey so it's going to be interesting to see where Amanda kessle Falls just a reminder that um dubas told DK Sports Pittsburgh or DK uh Pittsburgh sports excuse me um after Amanda was drafted quote I don't want to speak for Amanda and she's been outstanding in our front office it's a tough one because the pwhl finally started get En rolling and it's a great Avenue for women to play and be rewarded financially for their talent bance so I'd like to see Amanda live that out and make sure that she's happy on that front but at the same time we'd love for her to stay in the front office she was outstanding in the year on so many fronts and her potential on the front office side is unlimited she can run her own NHL team one day just the progress that she's made this year has been spectacular so we'll see what happens there that's Amanda's own personal thing and we're supportive either way so that was after was drafted back in June and this promotion just came this week so I think it it really gives Amanda some options if I had to guess she'll probably get PA paid a little bit better uh with the Pittsburgh Penguins than she might with pwhl Montreal but again how much is she committed to showing that she can still be an elite level hockey player how committed is she to being a part of the growth of this league and I want to pause there because because whether it's Amanda kessle or quite honestly anyone else it really shouldn't be up to the players alone and arguably at all um especially early on to feel the burden of making this league successful you really want the athletes to do the best that they can to be the best athlete that they can and if you select your team properly as a general manager if you set up the marketing correctly as a league front office than if just to use Amanda as an example if Amanda Castle does everything she needs to do to be an elite level athlete then the product should speak for itself or you have people that are speaking on behalf of Amanda Kel's amazing talent on the ice so if Amanda Kastle doesn't decide to come to the pwl I don't think that should be an indictment on how she feels necessarily about the league um not NE necessarily and I don't think it should be an indictment on how much she quote unquote uh believes in or wants to promote the future of women's hockey and you know I've got to I've gotten to cover Amanda kessle and she played for the riveters and I really respect that from my interactions with her Amanda kessle wants to be a hockey player she wants to talk about hockey things she understands and I think she's grown into being comfortable talking about the hashtag or quote unquote grow the game movement but I don't ever feel that she was the kind of player that was going to on her own take that on now you compare that to a Kendall coin scoffield a Hillary Knight a Sarah nurse and again you know there is a role and an important role that those players have played and will continue to play and those are the those are the players that people recognize even if they're just casually or quite honestly not at all following women's hockey so it's not that one path is better or worse you just have to know what your role is and and what you're comfortable doing and I love that at least in their quotes both the Penguins and pwhl Montreal are saying that they're going to leave this decision up to Amanda kessle so what will she decide I guess we'll just have to wait and find out for my money I think maybe we don't see Amanda kzle in the pwl this season I think the the pwl Montreal team would have to get really Innovative not just with how they're going to pay her and compensate her but also with the scheduling the games are every other day in the middle of the week how is that going to work for someone who is managing scouting um you know and minor league development at the AHL level and is feeding that information directly to the Pitts B Penguins I don't know if that's really going to work out but of course selfishly I would love to see Amanda kessle now speaking of Amanda kessle in the Olympics the last little nugget that I want to leave with is that we of course just had Paris 2024 we have the Paro Olympics starting up here soon and that makes me think of 2026 when Milano CA will will host the next Winter Olympics but if you're looking to just Google the hockey venues what you're going to find is that the main venue is not even finished yet this is one of the Olympics where some of the venues including the ice hockey rink in Milano um has been contracted and the The Proposal included a vision for the uh for the facility not a completed facility so there are some concerns as we're already effectively past the two-year mark until the Winter Olympics what is that going to look like are all of the venues going to be solidified and at least at the top of the Year closer to February some of those answers were we don't know and the planning committee for Milano CA in Italy felt that they were behind and really hoping that they could you know pump the uh pump on that gas with some of their contractors and other things that they need to get going so I don't know if she's officially done um with hockey overall I certainly hope we get to see Amanda kessle but what I hope even more is whoever is on that USA hockey team and all of the other teams that will compete that the facilities are done and are safe all right so I guess we'll just have to follow up there thanks for watching and listening to the women's hockey spotlight