Ottawa Charge Trade Harmon and Scamurra to Toronto for Larocque and Bach

Right as 2024 draws to a close, the Ottawa Charge and Toronto Sceptres have pulled off the biggest trade in PWHL history, swapping Savannah Harmon and Hayley Scamurra for Jocelyn Larocque and Victoria Bach.

It’s an absolute blockbuster that could change the course of both teams’ seasons. It also, unfortunately, looks like a clear win for Toronto. Let’s go through some of the important storylines here.

Harmon needed a change of scenery

Savannah Harmon arrived in Ottawa with a lot of hype, and she did not really live up to it. As an established member of Team USA’s blue line, she’s known for her puck-moving abilities and her offensive talent, and we saw very little of that in Ottawa. She was fine, but I don’t think she ever lived up to her draft position.

Ottawa hockey fans are well accustomed to defenders who make big, obvious mistakes in their own zone, and I like to think that most of us are pretty forgiving of them, but Harmon was simply not impressive enough in the offensive zone to make up for her mistakes. We didn’t see that offensive flair she always pulls out in international tournaments (and the PWHL showcase at the NHL all-star game, apparently!).

With the Charge struggling early on in the season, I’m not surprised that Harmon was the choice for a roster shakeup.

Larocque is well past her prime

Coming in to replace Harmon is Jocelyn Larocque, a very familiar face to anyone who watches a lot of Team Canada women’s hockey. In her prime, Larocque was one of the best defenders in the sport, an absolute pillar on Canada’s back end. Note the past tense.

At 36, Larocque is the oldest player in the league. Toronto selecting her 2nd overall in last year's inaugural draft was a huge shock, and although she had a good first season, she has struggled a lot in 2024-25. With another year left on her contract after this one, it’s not hard to see why Toronto wanted to part ways. It could be that a change of scenery could reignite Larocque’s game, but… doesn’t it seem more likely that a 36 year old player is slowing down as she approaches the end of her career?

In the short term, this trade could stabilize Ottawa’s defense. I’m assuming Larocque will be paired up with Roese, who’s had an excellent start to the season, with Tejralova and Savolainen staying together as the second pairing, and either Boyd or Markkowski paired up with Bell on the third pairing. That’s a very solid group of defenders. Ottawa also brings in leadership. But I don’t know if they’ve gotten much better, and I worry that they’ll regret this trade by next season.

It sucks to see Scamurra go

The most upsetting part of this trade, to me, is the loss of Scamurra, who was a fan favourite in Ottawa and even scored the first goal in Ottawa Charge history. She’s a high-energy player, one of the best on the team at getting pucks to the net. I was genuinely shocked when I looked up her stat line and discovered that she doesn’t have a point this season - not just because she played well last season, but because she’s been playing really well recently even if she apparently hasn’t been burying her chances. She’s not completely irreplaceable, but she’s still an important part of Ottawa’s forward group.

Victoria Bach is… good?

Of the four players involved in this trade, Bach is the one I’m least familiar with. It sounds like she was a really successful NCAA player who hasn’t totally wowed people in the PWHL. She’s had a really slow start to the season and has been playing on Toronto’s fourth line. If she ends up taking Scamurra’s spot on the second line in Ottawa, that might jump-start her offensive production. Like with Harmon, this is a change-of-scenery trade for Bach.

How much did the PWHL’s salary structure affect this?

In case it wasn’t clear already, I’m very confused by this trade. Frankly, I think it would have made a lot more sense if it was just Harmon for Larocque and Bach. Throwing in Scamurra makes it hilariously uneven in Toronto’s favour.

That makes me wonder if maybe the trade is so weird because of the PWHL’s salary structure, which imposes an average salary rather than a salary cap. Without official salary information from the league, we don’t know exactly what each player is making, but I’m assuming the salary exchange needs to be even so that both teams can stay at the average. I could be wrong, but my theory about this trade is that Scamurra is there to balance out the salaries.

We won’t have to wait long to see how the trade works out, because the two teams are facing each other tonight at 7pm, with all the new players on their new teams!