The Dallas Stars have signed center Wyatt Johnston to a five-year extension following their blockbuster acquisition of winger Mikko Rantanen earlier Friday.

Johnston, 21, inked a five-year deal worth $8.4 million against the salary cap through 2030, when he'll become an unrestricted free agent. Both Johnston and Rantanen are represented by agent Andy Scott of Octagon. Rantanen signed an eight-year contract extension with the Stars after being acquired from the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday.

Johnston is in his third NHL season. He has 79 goals and 86 assists in 226 career games, including 23 goals and 36 assists in 62 games this season. He has been strong for the Stars in the postseason, too, with 14 goals and 8 assists in 38 games.

Rantanen agreed to an eight-year deal with an average annual value of $12 million ahead of Friday's NHL trade deadline.

Following the acquisition of Rantanen, the Stars became the co-favorite to win the Stanley Cup at ESPN BET, moving from +700 to +600. The Florida Panthers also moved to +600 (from +750) to win the championship this year after landing Brad Marchand in a deal with the Boston Bruins. The Edmonton Oilers (+700) had previously been the Stanley Cup favorites.

The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired Boston Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo, adding significant size and a veteran presence to their blue line ahead of Friday's NHL trade deadline.

The Maple Leafs traded top prospect Fraser Minten and a 2026 first-round pick to the Bruins for Carlo. They also traded forward Connor Dewar and defenseman Conor Timmins to the Pittsburgh Penguins for future considerations to clear roster space.

Carlo, 28, is a 6-foot-5, 220-pound defensive stopper in his ninth year with the Bruins. He has averaged 18:46 in ice time this season in 62 games and was the Bruins' primary penalty killer on the blueline (2:50 short-handed ice time per game). Carlo helped the Bruins defeat the Maple Leafs in playoff series in 2019 and 2024.

Carlo is signed through 2027 with a $4.1 million cap hit. In the deal, Boston will retain 15% of Carlo's salary, sources told ESPN.

Minten, 20, was selected 38th overall in the 2022 NHL draft. He can play center or wing. Minten has played 19 games with the Maple Leafs in the NHL after turning pro in 2023-24 but has spent most of this season with the AHL Toronto Marlies. The 6-2 forward plays a physical game and can play a variety of roles. Many considered him to be the Leafs' second-best prospect behind forward Easton Cowan.

The Boston Bruins unloaded many players at the NHL trade deadline. Besides Carlo, the Bruins traded captain Brad Marchand to the Florida Panthers, center Charlie Coyle to the Colorado Avalanche, center Trent Frederic to the Edmonton Oilers and forward Justin Brazeau to the Minnesota Wild.

United States men's national team defender Sergiño Dest is set to make his return for PSV Eindhoven on Saturday after an 11-month injury layoff.

PSV coach Peter Bosz said Friday that he was expecting to include Dest in the squad that takes on Heerenveen in the Dutch Eredivisie.

"If all goes well, Sergiño Dest will be in the matchday squad tomorrow. I'm very happy about that," he told a news conference.

Dest, 24, suffered a torn ACL while training with PSV on April 20 last year. At the time, the former Ajax player was on a season-long loan from Barcelona, but, despite the injury, PSV made the move permanent, signing Dest to a contact through 2028 last June.

His return will come as a welcome boost for PSV. After winning the Dutch title last season, they currently sit in second place, eight points behind leaders Ajax. Bosz's side are also coming off the back of an emphatic 7-1 home defeat to Arsenal in the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie on Tuesday.

Dest has 33 caps for the USMNT but has been unavailable for selection since Mauricio Pochettino took over as coach last September. Pochettino is set to name his roster for the Concacaf Nations League finals on Tuesday. The U.S. will face Panama in the semifinals on March 20.

Ruben Amorim has said he won't get the same time to rebuild Manchester United as Mikel Arteta has enjoyed at Arsenal as the two managers prepare to meet at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Arsenal finished eighth and fifth in Arteta's first two full seasons in charge at the Emirates after arriving at the club in December 2019.

Despite coming close to winning the title in 2023 and 2024, he's approaching five years without a trophy, with the club having not won silverware since the FA Cup in 2020.

Amorim has been tasked with a similar rebuilding job at United, but he's not expecting his bosses to show the same patience.

"I will not have the time Arteta had," Amorim told reporters on Friday.

"I feel that. It's a different club, I think it's a different club. I think in that aspect the way Arteta dealt with that is an inspiration for everybody but I will not have the time like Arteta had."

United and Arsenal are separated by 21 points in the table ahead of Sunday's meeting. Arteta handed Amorim his first Premier League defeat in December when Arsenal beat United 2-0 at the Emirates.

United have a crucial Europa League second leg against Real Sociedad to come next Thursday after drawing 1-1 at the Anoeta, and Amorim has admitted he's concerned about how his injury-ravaged squad will cope against Arsenal this weekend.

"We need to survive on Sunday," he said.

"The team was so tired in the last 20 minutes [of the first leg against Real Sociedad]. We have to prepare for Sunday and think about this important game for our season on Thursday.

"We are trying to see all the players who are fresh and who are not in danger of getting an injury. Even with that we have to risk a little bit but we have to be competitive on Sunday."

Amorim said he "doesn't know" whether Harry Maguire and Manuel Ugarte will be fit to face Arsenal after both missed the first leg against Real Sociedad.

Youngster Chido Obi -- who spent much of his youth career with the north London club before joining United -- will be back in the squad after being ineligible for the trip to Spain, while Amorim has also raised the prospect that Amad Diallo could return from injury before the end of the campaign.

The game against Arsenal will also see United fans stage a protest against the club's ownership ahead of kick-off as anger continues to grow about perceived financial mismanagement.

"For everybody in our club it's a really tough moment," Amorim said.

"It's everything at the same time. The only thing I can do is and our players can do is perform well and win. People have the right to protest.

"I think it's a good thing to do that. It's part of our club. Everybody has a voice. But our job and my job is just to improve the team and give them something in this moment because they deserve it and they are amazing."

An investigation has been opened into the technical staff of Bay FC, National Women's Soccer League commissioner Jessica Berman confirmed on Friday.

The San Francisco Chronicle first reported on Friday that two former Bay FC players described the culture under head coach Albertin Montoya as "toxic." The report also said the league was made aware of one formal complaint in which a player said she had experienced "bullying" by Montoya.

"A review is underway by an independent third party, and we're very confident that the system we have in place will ensure that we surface the issues that need to be addressed, and that we'll continue to work with all of our clubs, our technical staff and our players to make sure that we're achieving our goal of creating a safe, healthy working environment," Berman said.

The news comes just weeks after the NWSL reached a $5 million settlement with the attorneys general from New York, Illinois and Washington, D.C., to close ongoing investigations and compensate mistreated athletes following a wave of "systemic" abuse uncovered by a pair of reports conducted in 2022.

The settlement, which Berman referenced throughout answers to repeated questions about investigations and team cultures in a 25-minute news conference on Friday ahead of the new season, also requires the NWSL to provide the results of annual anonymous player surveys to the attorneys general.

Berman, who became commissioner in early 2022 and has a legal background, said on Friday that complaints being raised are a sign that the new system is working. She said multiple times that these procedures and inquires are "commonplace in most work environments." She also emphasized that investigations do not equate to assumptions of guilt.

"You want to facilitate an environment where people can come forward without a predetermined conclusion that it means that there's been a violation, that there's going to be discipline," Berman said. "Once you have an environment where people come forward and think that's the assumption, it actually deters people from raising proactive concerns."

Montoya was hired to be the first head coach of Bay FC ahead of its 2024 expansion season, emerging late in the process as the choice after a global search put forward other candidates.

Montoya is a respected coach in the Bay Area with decades of experience in the youth landscape, with additional experience in the NWSL and the now defunct WPS, where he won a league title. The Chronicle reported that Montoya has a long-standing relationship with Bay FC majority owner Alan Waxman through the Mountain View Los Altos Soccer Club, a top youth program in the Bay Area.

"I don't actually think having familiarity or knowledge of a coach and his or her experience in the youth space is in and of itself a problem," Berman said, referencing other work environments where familiarity plays a role in hiring.

Bay FC struggled through the early part of its expansion season before general manager Lucy Rushton abruptly resigned in June, less than halfway through the team's first season. The team improved to make the expanded eight-team playoff field and narrowly lost in the quarterfinals.

Berman did not explicitly say whether the results of the investigation would be made public.

Last year, the San Diego Wave came under scrutiny after allegations from a former employee that the club, led by then team president Jill Ellis, created a toxic work environment. The Wave quickly refuted those allegations and a few weeks later, Ellis filed a defamation lawsuit. The league said after the fact that it had already concluded third-party investigations into the team and cleared it of wrongdoing.

Six former employees are suing the Wave and the NWSL for multiple forms of discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination.

"On a case-by-case basis, depending on what we learn and what the situation is that we're navigating, we have to make a judgment call about our macro goals and the specific circumstances that we have in front of us, and that's what we'll continue to do," Berman said on Friday about the league's choices around what to make public.

Bay FC also recently hired Graeme Abel as a head scout despite allegations of abuse in his most recent job as head coach of the University of Oregon's women's soccer team. A week after Abel was announced, and following significant backlash, he resigned from the role.

Abel had worked with Bay FC sporting director Matt Potter in several previous jobs, including at U.S. Soccer.

To get an idea of just how much the NWSL's current Collective Bargaining Agreement has changed the league, one need only to look at the two most recent trades involving current Seattle Reign forward Lynn Biyendolo (née Williams).

Back on Jan. 12, 2023, Biyendolo, at the time a regular with the U.S. women's national team, was traded from the Kansas City Current to Gotham FC. And she never saw it coming.

"That was a complete shock," she told ESPN about the deal. "I had no idea until about an hour before the trade happened."

Fast forward almost two years later and Biyendolo was dealt again, this time from Gotham to Seattle -- and her experience was completely different. In that instance, she not only knew ahead of time that she would be moved, but she had a say in where she went. The Fresno, California native wanted to go to a title contender and be closer to family.

"Very, very different," she said about the two experiences. "The ability to just wrap my head around everything, knowing that I was making an informed decision coming here, and it was on my own terms versus the latter [trade] of surprise, where you need to uproot your life and everything."

She added: "To have control in where we're living and where we want to work, I think it's vastly important."

Biyendolo owes the difference in part to the new CBA that the NWSL agreed to with players last August. Players can no longer be traded without their consent, but it doesn't stop there.

Whereas in the past, there was a limited form of free agency tied to service time, all players are now free to sign wherever they like upon reaching the end of their contract. All drafts are also gone, meaning collegiate players are no longer forced to go to the teams that select them and can now sign with whoever they wish.

As a result, the CBA has created a new dynamic in the league-wide struggle for supremacy, be it for players or teams. For players, they can choose the situation they think will work best, deciding if they fit with the manager and the team's style and culture. A quick canvassing of some players at the recent NWSL Media Day revealed that when selecting a team, potential playing time is still a top priority.

"I think it's all about if you can fit in and get that playing time that you want," said Houston Dash forward Michelle Alozie, who signed a two-year contract extension with the Dash last September. "People have different reasons for wanting to leave or try something new, but I think everyone wants to play at the end of the day. Maybe you go to a club that, one, fits your playing style, but two, you can actually make a lasting impact."

• Stream the NWSL opening weekend on ESPN+: KC Current vs. Portland Thorns (March 15)

That is by no means the only consideration. The needs of a player can vary depending on what stage of their career they're in.

"Some people may be younger and want the development, and some people maybe are at the end of their career and want to be closer to family," said North Carolina Courage midfielder Ashley Sanchez. "So it just really depends [on] what you're trying to get out of it. I think what's kind of special is every team kind of offers something different. I feel like North Carolina is a place where players go and they develop."

In many ways, the new CBA was a way for the NWSL to keep up with European leagues, where free agency at the end of a contract is the norm.

Unfettered free agency has also put every team in the league on notice, and on a variety of levels. Some had to refine their recruiting pitches, though Meghann Burke, the executive director of the NWSL Players Association, feels this is an ongoing process.

"I think there's the way some teams are doing it and then there's the way they should be doing it," she said about the teams' approach to recruiting. "I think some teams are pitching what they have to offer and making it about them. But I think some of the more successful teams in free agency are pitching how they can help that player meet their needs in that stage of their career."

Burke added that those considerations are becoming more granular. If a player has a history of injuries, they'll be looking closely at the medical staff. If they want development, they'll look at the coach and the staff's management style. And so on.

"You have to meet players where they're at, and you've got to do your research on what are the things that matter most to athletes," said Orlando Pride sporting director and VP of soccer operations Haley Carter. "And some common similarities I think is the ability to develop.

"They all want to be the best version of themselves. And so really being able to meet with them on that and create an understanding of what those goals are and how your staff and environment can help them achieve those goals is really important."

Because of the increased emphasis on player recruitment, the new CBA has created another directive for clubs: Invest or perish. This can happen on a variety of levels. For some clubs like the Kansas City Current, the investment has been in facilities like stadiums and training bases.

It's an approach that is being followed by Angel City FC, which just opened its training facility. The Portland Thorns just announced plans to build a new training facility that will also be used with the city's WNBA team.

But it needn't stop there. There are investments to be made in in training staff, medical staff, as well as scouts to aid in player recruitment. On top of that is making sure those additions have the resources they need to succeed. There are a lot of buckets to fill.

The Pride, fresh off winning the league title last season, is a club that ticks a lot of these boxes. For that reason, Carter said their approach to recruiting hasn't really changed. She knows who their targets are "well in advance." But Carter wants to see every other team in the league do the same, albeit with their own twist.

"I think holistically for the league, and one of the reasons why I'm a proponent of free agency, is that it really sort of forces everyone to invest and be serious and professionalize and make sure that you're investing in staff," she said. "Make sure you're investing in the facilities. Make sure you're investing in player support and their experience and what that's like on and off the field.

"You've got to get things right if you want to attract the best players and if you want to retain the best players."

She added: "The CBA is the floor. That's the bare minimum."

Some of the more recent additions to the league are trying to play catchup in these areas. The Utah Royals are set to begin their second season, and sporting director Kelly Cousins told ESPN that the emphasis will be on improving player recruitment "and having more eyes out there, whether it's U.S.-based, worldwide-based and really starting to grow that."

A club spokesperson added that Utah has three full-time dedicated staff but have plans to engage more part-time scouts.

Bay FC is in a similar situation, with the team's sporting director, Matt Potter, admitting that last season the team engaged in a "reset" that saw him take over in the middle of the campaign from initial hire Lucy Rushton.

"It's all well and good getting a player here, but then what do we surround them with when they are here?" Potter said. "We probably have one of the most robust player care and high performance/medical departments, and the one thing in our identity as a club, as we look at development, is a parallel path between on the field and off of the field."

Another knock-on effect of the CBA is that other, more established clubs aren't standing still. The Kansas City Current has a leg up on many other teams in that it has a training facility as well as their own stadium. The next frontier is youth development.

Current co-owner Angie Long said that in the "global war for talent is everybody is leveling up."

The CBA has been in effect for only six months, but so far this is one rising tide that will lift the entire league -- and the players most of all.

ESPN's Cesar Hernandez contributed to this report.

When NCAA All-American striker Diana Ordóñez debuted in the NWSL in 2022, there was little more that she could ask from her rookie season with the North Carolina Courage. Within her first professional year, Ordonez immediately became a star for the Courage, broke the league's scoring record for a rookie, and also earned a call-up for Mexico's national team.

The only problem: She had no say in going to North Carolina.

"I'm incredibly grateful for the experiences that I had there, the coaches that I had, the teammates," the now-Houston Dash forward told ESPN about her first club. "[But] I didn't get to choose to go there, they picked me.

"Still, an unbelievable experience, but at the end of the day my desire was to be closer to home. My family is from Dallas, so Houston would be the best place for me and my life."

Following changes made by last year's new collective bargaining agreement in the NWSL, Ordoñez's predicament is now a thing of the past.

Thanks to changes in the CBA, the U.S. women's top flight is the first major league in the United States to eliminate a college or entry draft, thereby giving college players the freedom to negotiate and choose their first professional team.

"I see it as a great thing for the NWSL," said Ordoñez. "This way, people can kind of shop around and choose where they want to be."

Along with other changes that include alterations to free agency and player consent for trades, a new era is now underway in the NWSL. With more freedoms shifting in the favor of players, there's now a different environment that professionals, clubs and the league will have to adapt to.

The NWSL, in other words, is forging a path no other major American league has before.

When speaking about the end of the draft and changes to free agency, commissioner Jessica Berman was open when discussing the uncharted road ahead during late January's NWSL Media Day.

"It's a learning process for the whole ecosystem," Berman told journalists in attendance.

"On the technical staff side, they've never experienced anything like this. There actually is nothing to point to as a case study of how to make this transition, because there is no league that has gone from a world of a draft and having years of service, to being able to earn free agency and just having that melt away overnight."

So what does this all mean for rookies and for the league? In order to get a better understanding on the overall impact, ESPN chatted with players and general managers about maneuvering through an NWSL world without a draft.

A boost for NWSL players: "I could advocate for myself"

In line with Ordoñez, there was near universal approval from the players ESPN asked about the college draft being abolished.

For Bay FC's Taylor Huff, who is part of the first generation to have had the opportunity to negotiate her future after playing in the NCAA, there was an appreciation for those who helped make the changes to the CBA.

"I'm very thankful for the people who came before me who were like 'No, we don't want a draft' ... I think it definitely benefited me in a lot of ways, because I'm such a comfortable person in knowing that I could go into an environment before I choose the team, [and that] was everything that I think I personally needed," Huff said.

"I'm very, very grateful that the people in the NWSL spoke up and kind of made that decision easy for me."

• Stream the NWSL opening weekend on ESPN+: KC Current vs. Portland Thorns (March 15)

San Diego Wave's Quincy McMahon, one of the first NCAA players to be signed after the end of the draft, echoed those feelings. Notably, the former UCLA defender also highlighted that the latest changes helped create a "tipping point" for those who were considering going pro in the NWSL.

"The autonomy that we have, that was a huge thing for a lot of us," McMahon. "Just to be more excited and to kind of be like 'Oh, maybe I do want to play professionally if I get to kind of have a say in where I go,' so I think for some of my teammates it was a tipping point."

"We knew that it meant I had more of a say, but also that I could advocate for myself, and also I could kind of negotiate in a way, and before it was like you got drafted, you got a contract, and that's what you took."

That tipping point for rookies has helped keep the number of player signings stable. According to some number-crunching over at The Equalizer, a total of 42 outgoing NCAA players have so far signed NWSL contracts in the 2025 offseason. Looking at research from Spotrac, only seven drafted players signed with an NWSL club by the end of February last year, although that number then goes up to 40 when including those who signed before the start of the season in March of 2024.

The NWSL's 2025 season kicks off on March 14.

It appears fears of a severe drop-off in signings have been unrealized in the first NWSL season without the draft. When including other competitions such as the new domestic USL Super League and others from abroad, professional contracts for recent college players are currently outpacing what we've seen from the previous class.

For rising stars like University of Texas alum Lexi Missimo, who was included in the U.S. national team's "Futures Camp" in January, the end of the draft helped solidify the notion that she not only had free agency, but also even more opportunities to consider beyond the NWSL.

"I think it just puts into consideration of where people truly want to live, and also knowing which team has an attacking midfielder or where you're going to get the most minutes. I think that's what the draft going away really makes an athlete think about," said Missimo, who signed with the USL's Dallas Trinity FC near the midpoint of the league's inaugural season.

"I just really sat in with my family and thought about, where do I truly want to live? Where do I think I'm going to benefit the most for playing wise?"

Four minutes into her February debut, Missimo scored her first professional goal.

"When I was making my decision with my inner circle, it wasn't about the two leagues, both leagues are great, it was more about where I wanted to play and where I was going to get the most minutes to develop my game."

The importance of being able to make that decision has been clear. Along with players being able to negotiate as free agents, and also creating their own sporting pathways through the end of the draft, there's the simple but vital factor of playing where you want to play --- which should be constructive for all involved.

"At the end of the day, you want to go somewhere where you want to be," said Bay FC's Huff. "They want people to choose where they want to be, and if they're where they want to be, then they're going to be at their best and happy."

The front office perspective and recruitment

If we're using ESPN's anonymous NWSL GM survey from last year as a barometer, feelings are undoubtedly mixed about the end of the draft.

Asked before the CBA had been approved, there was a near-even split among general managers who wanted to keep it or do away with it. One worry cited by several was the lack of new roster mechanisms that could help replace the draft, while another brought up was the usefulness of having a tradeable resource and tool to sign players without transfer fees.

Nonetheless, from the two GMs that ESPN spoke with for this article, months after the CBA had been passed, there was a recognition of the league making the right steps.

"Look, we would have benefited from a draft this year from where we placed last season, but I'm still gonna sit here and say that this is the best thing for the league," said San Diego GM and sporting director Camille Ashton. "You have to do the work as a club to attract players here, and I think that that's only going to improve us as a club and as an organization overall. ... I think it's a real positive for everybody."

With the addition of the University of North Carolina's Trinity Armstrong in January, Wave have so far added three outgoing NCAA players to their roster during the current offseason. According to Ashton, there is an additional "responsibility on the teams" to now cater to players who could help raise the standard of each club.

"Responsibility" was a word that was also used by Yael Averbuch West, GM and head of soccer operations for NJ/NY Gotham FC, when chatting about the new landscape of women's soccer.

"We have to scout more players and not just look at, 'We have X number of draft picks'," said Averbuch West. "[We] look at the whole college game and say, like of these group of players, which players do we think could contribute to our roster in short and in longer term, and so that is a huge responsibility."

"Now you can really be ambitious and go and try to recruit players to play for your club. So I think, we saw the great opportunity. We've put in a lot of work, and we will continue to do so to really understand the college game, understand how it translates to the pro game."

As part of a restructuring of the team, Gotham have been busy in the offseason with five rookie signings from the NCAA. Whether that continues going forward will be on a case-by-case basis for Averbuch West, who noted that these decisions for clubs could change by roster needs, and that there may be future years in which Gotham may have just one spot open.

Regardless of the exact number, part of the overall thinking for both clubs is the desire to find better fits that also want to be within an organization. As Ashton put it: "Being part of a team should never be like a one way choice, or like a one way decision, it really needs to be mutually beneficial and be the right place for both parties."

Doing so means preparing pitches, literally and figuratively, to players.

For San Diego's McMahon, the process felt akin to college recruiting with meetings and Zoom calls with different teams. Clubs would provide selling points, discuss their philosophy, tactical approaches, and also showcase their facilities. As for Huff, the rookie credited the ability to find a good agent that was able to quickly bring information to her that allowed her to adequately communicate back and forth with different teams.

There's more review and assessments from either side, and from the perspective of a more experienced NWSL figure like Chicago Stars FC's Sam Staab, she's seen an increase in trials being utilized in the offseason.

"Teams are holding combines or maybe doing a bit more due diligence," said Staab to ESPN. "I do think teams are doing that and I think it's smart, I think it's cool. I think an opportunity to show yourself in front of the coaches that you want to play for is an opportunity that anyone should and want to have."

Club's front offices can't hold onto players indefinitely as trialists either. Time constraints in the NWSL's 2025 Competition Manual have given 56 days (consecutive or non-consecutive) maximum for a U21 trialist, or 21 days (consecutive or non-consecutive) maximum for trialists that are over the age of 21.

"There was no rule previously around the amount of days that trialists could be in," said Ashton. "These time constraints, it really [does] not force the teams to make decisions, but if that time period expires, then the player can make that decision to move on, to take another opportunity elsewhere."

"The next chapter" of the NWSL

Unknowns do still remain.

Despite the fact that McMahon was able to seamlessly find her way into the NWSL, the defender noted that some of her college teammates haven't had the most straightforward journeys.

"I know for many of my friends, even at UCLA, this process has been long and drawn out, and even right now, they're not sure where they're going to end up, or if they're going to end up anywhere," said McMahon. "To be fair, it's the first year."

When speaking to Racing Louisville's Savannah DeMelo, who viewed the end of the draft as a positive for the league, she also hinted at worries that some college players could be overlooked: "The downside to it is that there's so many people that now maybe won't get a shot," while also noting that the USL could help pick up the slack for those who are looking for chances outside of the NWSL.

And while players do have the freedom to choose teams, that freedom is still immediately and rapidly placed on their shoulders right after leaving the NCAA.

"We can't speak to any professional clubs before we end our college season, and we can't have an agent represent us before we end our college season," said McMahon. "Which I understand the implications of as to why, but I do think that that made the process very hard and fast."

As highlighted earlier, the good news in the early days of the new NWSL era is that things are looking mostly promising when looking at the number of signings of outgoing college players. When coupled with those who are playing in the USL and abroad, the argument could be made that it's an exciting moment for those who want to become professionals in the world's game.

However, at the NWSL level, adjustments and a necessary evolution will have to continue to follow for the league that has to find more avenues into the competition that has no centralized academy structure or a secondary league.

"I think time will tell the resources that our clubs need to be able to make their scouting processes more sophisticated," said Berman during NWSL's Media Day. "It's created a really important dialogue at our board level about investing in the path-to-pro, which I think is going to be the next chapter of this league's growth."

For Ashton and Averbuch West, that future means finding ways to include more under the NWSL umbrella.

"Certainly, there needs to be an extended amount of players who are involved in each professional club's environment. What that exactly looks like, I think, is a little bit TBD. How quickly it happens is TBD," said Averbuch West.

"Like for us at Gotham, how many players feel that they have a tie to the Gotham environment right now? We can only have 26 on contract with our first team...what is the extension of that look like?"

Ashton brought up the need for a secondary league.

"With a lot of younger players entering the league, if players aren't getting playing time pretty consistently, it's hard to develop," said San Diego's GM. "Having some version of a second team, or a B team, where your first team and pro players can play in those games, I think is going to be a really important step."

No matter the case on how the league develops, those next steps will have to continue to cater to the needs of players along the way, especially with the rise of new women's leagues, such as the USL. With free agency increasing and opportunities beyond the NWSL, players are recognizing the significance of choosing what works best for their careers.

"People have a voice, and they want to play where they want and they want to be happy where they are working. Obviously, I mean, this is a job at the end of the day," said Dallas' Missimo.

Whether they're looking for minutes, a fresh start, or simply want to be closer to home, there's an invaluable power to be able to help dictate one's own future. The end of the draft is a noteworthy win for those seeking that, and it's another step towards emphasizing that each player isn't just a name and a number on a jersey.

"We're so much more than an athlete. We're so much more than the person you see on the field," said Huff.

"I feel like even in the media and the NWSL, we can do a better job at portraying who we are as humans. We have so many different avenues and routes and things we like to do, so I feel like at times, it can be hard to be categorized only as a soccer player, only this."

"Maybe it doesn't relate as much to this story, but I think it's super important to realize too."