Las Vegas signs Knight, trades to Detroit for first-round pick
One of the biggest names in sports is coming to the Motor City.
It was officially announced on Tuesday that PWHL Las Vegas has traded forward Hilary Knight to Detroit, with Las Vegas will be receiving Detroit’s first-round pick of the 2026 PWHL Draft. The PWHL released the draft order on Monday, with Las Vegas now holding the third and fifth overall picks.
Knight joins a stacked core that includes Daryl Watts, Hannah Bilka, Cayla Barnes, Jesse Compher and Britta Curl-Salemme.
This is the second year in a row that Knight will play for an expansion team. She signed a one-year contract with the Seattle Torrent, bringing some legitimacy to one of the PWHL’s two teams in the Pacific Northwest. Yet, things didn’t work out for the Idaho native and her new team. The Torrent couldn’t find any consistency, and their lack of offense led to them struggling to keep up with the top squads in the league. On top of that, Knight tore her MCL while representing the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics, which kept her out for over a month from Seattle’s return from break.
While the Torrent finished with the worst record in the young history of the PWHL, the 36-year-old posted five goals and nine assists for 14 points in 22 games. It was a far cry from her performance with the Boston Fleet during the 2024-25 season, when she tied the New York Sirens rookie for the most points in the league with 29.
Knight wasn’t one of the three that Torrent general manager Meghan Turner protected, a decision that came to be mutually agreed upon. Seattle protected forward Alex Carpenter, defender Anna Wilgren and goaltender Hannah Murphy.
In 76 regular-season games in the PWHL, Knight has scored 26 goals and 28 assists for 54 points.
Knight’s Olympic career went out with a bang in Milan. Despite playing through injury, she was able to break the U.S. women’s Olympic goal and points record, helping her team win the gold medal for the third time in the country’s history, and second of her career.
With the signing, Detroit has used up all five permitted spots of its roster to fill during Phase 2, which ends on Monday. Hamilton, Las Vegas and San Jose still have a couple of more days to sign players from the 20-player negotiating lists.
