Finding her stride: Sarah Fillier's path to projected top pick in 2024 PWHL draft
CBC
Sarah Fillier carried the puck from one end of the ice to the other, stickhandling through two Quinnipiac University defenders before scoring bar-down.
It was early December 2018 and a then-18-year-old Fillier had recently returned to Princeton University from the Four Nations Cup, where she scored a goal in her first call-up to the Canadian senior national women's team.
She spent that time rooming with her idol, Marie-Philip Poulin. She watched how Poulin carried herself on and off the ice, and how she's always striving to get better no matter what she's accomplished.
The first couple months of college hockey had been an adjustment for Fillier, who needed to get used to a different style of play against older players. But after returning from her stint with Team Canada, Princeton head coach Cara Morey remembers feeling like something inside Fillier let go in that game against Quinnipiac.
"This is a scary player," Morey remembers thinking on the bench that night. Fillier scored twice in that 4-1 Princeton win.
"You could just see the confidence build in her," Morey said. "As a coach, it was a really exciting moment because you knew she found her stride, essentially."
WATCH | Playing in PWHL would be 'a dream come true' for Fillier:
More than five years and an Olympic gold medal later, 23-year-old Fillier is likely to hear her name called first overall in this June's PWHL draft.
The team that drafts her is getting a generational player, a game changer who can see the ice and find ways to score like few others can.
She'll start her pro career fresh off a season with Princeton where she led the country in goals per game (1.03). Before that, she was Canada's best player at the 2023 world championship, earning tournament MVP honours with 11 points in seven games.
"Not only are they getting the best young player in the world, but they're getting someone who cares deeply about her family and her friends and her teammates," Morey said.
It's been a path that's included some bumps in the road, from returning to the college game after two seasons away to learning how to be a leader under a bright spotlight.
Fillier was around 14 years old the first time Morey saw her play at a provincial tournament with the Halton Twisters, after people kept telling her she had to see a talented teenager from Georgetown, Ont., a community about 50 kilometres west of Toronto.
Fillier wasn't the biggest player on the ice, but she was physically dominant. Her hands, speed and shot were on a different level.
