Natalie Spooner named IIHF Player of the Year

The awards keep coming for Natalie Spooner.

The PWHL Toronto forward was named the IIHF’s Female Player of the Year for 2024, garnering one-third of the vote from the nearly 100 media members voting through the international hockey organization.

The 32-year-old recorded four points for Canada at the 2024 Women’s World Championships in Utica, N.Y., helping her country win the tournament.

However, it was her MVP-caliber season through the inaugural PWHL campaign that earned her the hardware, closing out the 2024 season as the league’s Top Goal Scorer and Points Leader, scoring 20 goals and seven assists for a total of 27 points.

Spooner was named the Billie Jean King MVP Award recipient at the end of the season.

PWHL Toronto may have to start the 2024-25 season without Spooner, as the forward suffered a knee injury in Game 3 of their first-round series against Minnesota, with the team announcing soon after she would be out for the remainder of the playoffs.

“We’re preparing for this draft and free agency in the event that she will not be ready to start the season with us,” PWHL Toronto General Manager Gina Kingsbury said. “If she does, great. If not, we want to make sure we’re doing our due diligence to equip our team with the players that will allow us to be successful in her absence.”

PWHL New York forward Alex Carpenter finished second in IIHF voting with 14.6 percent of the vote, and PWHL Montreal forward Marie-Philip Poulin placed third.