What went wrong for the Vancouver Goldeneyes?
They were too good to fail…until they did.
Despite coming into its inaugural season with all the expectations in the world, the Vancouver Goldeneyes were unable to rise to the occasion. After failing to beat the Seattle Torrent in regulation on Saturday, the Goldeneyes were eliminated from Walter Cup Playoff contention.
It’s crazy to think that just five months ago, many (including yours truly) thought the Goldeneyes were going to run through the PWHL in its first year of existence. General manager Cara Gardner Morey used her college background and recruited big names during the expansion process – Sarah Nurse, Sophie Jaques and Emerance Maschmeyer to name a few – and seemingly “won” the expansion draft compared to the Torrent.
However, when the puck dropped, the Goldeneyes fell flat. They never seemed to be able to string together any wins, and with that, no true momentum to be considered a playoff threat. The team lost its first three road games (more on that later) and won just three of its first nine.
A number of factors contributed to Vancouver’s miserable first season. Let’s take a look at the big ones:
Lack of camaraderie
This can also be tied to something that plagued the Torrent in their first season, but while the Goldeneyes had a number of all-star-caliber players, coming together to play as a unit proved a greater challenge than expected. Even with the original six losing several players to expansion last summer, the core for those teams mostly remained intact. Teams like the Montreal Victoire, Boston Fleet, and Minnesota Frost had enough players who had been there since day one and understood what made each other tick, hence why they’re all heading to the playoffs.
It probably didn’t help that Nurse missed the first month-plus of the season due to injury, but even after she returned, the offense couldn’t find a rhythm.
Specialty teams were a prime example of how out of sync Brian Idalski’s team would be at times. The power play is one of the worst the league has ever seen, working at just 9% through 27 games. Only the Toronto Scepters have a lower success rate, albeit a measly 0.1 percentage points worse than Vancouver. Thanks to being the most penalized team in the league, the Goldeneyes saw a lot of time shorthanded, allowed a league-leading 17 shorthanded goals, and posted an 81.1 percent kill rate that ranks seventh.
Overall, the team just struggled to find some cohesion in its first year together. Whether it was internal factors that led to discombobulation or the simple fact that the group didn’t have enough time together before their first game, Vancouver seemed to be trying to figure out how to play together more than to work together as a team.
Road-kill
At one point, it looked like the Goldeneyes were only ever going to be able to win at Pacific Coliseum. The team lost its first eight true road games before finally beating the Toronto Sceptres on March 29. The only other times Vancouver won outside British Columbia came in Takeover Tour games, which it managed to do twice.
With expansion to the West Coast, there would be concerns about travel for the PWHL’s newest teams. While there have been no reports of exact travel and lodging arrangements for the Goldeneyes or Torrent, Idalski has gone public, saying that the league needs to help study how the back-and-forth travel is affecting both teams, mentally and physically. While NHL teams are used to cross-country travel, with organizations having dedicated personnel to help ensure the athletes remain in top shape, this is a new endeavor for the women’s game.
Granted, it’d be wrong to say the team could only lose away from home. In March, the Goldeneyes had a five-game homestand that could’ve helped keep them in the playoff race. However, they went 1-2-2, and it seemed to completely take the wind out of the team’s sails.
Offensively inefficient
Going back to the on-ice product, one of the glaring issues is goal scoring, or lack thereof. On paper, Vancouver has plenty of weapons to put the puck in the net. Along with the likes of Nurse and Jaques, the Goldeneyes signed Hannah Miller and Tereza Vanisova, both of whom were among the most productive players in 2024-25 for the Scepters and Ottawa Charge, respectively. However, they’ve both taken a step back. Yet, defender Claire Thompson is the only player on the roster in the top 20 in league scoring.
After scoring 10 goals and 24 points last year in Toronto, Miller has just 12 points so far this year. Vanisova has taken a massive step back, going from 15 goals, inserting her name into the MVP conversation, to just three. Other players, like Abby Boreen and Michelle Karvinen (the team’s first-ever PWHL Draft selection), have also performed far below expectations.
If the eye test doesn’t tell you enough of a story, the Goldeneyes have a league-worst Corsi For (993), with a Corsi For percentage of 48.6% just ahead of the Torrent and Charge. Maybe the prior two points had something to do with it, but Vancouver has come well short of being the high-scoring team many had hoped for.
Defensive struggles
On top of not being able to score, the Goldeneyes sure found a way to let their opponent take the game to them. In their first 27 games, Vancouver was outshot 15 times, seven times on home ice. Even with the likes of Thompson, Jaques, and captain Ashton Bell on the back end, the team found itself running around in its own zone, leading to several grade-A scoring chances. Their Corsi Against (1052) isn’t the worst in the PWHL, but there were many nights where it seemed like both Maschmeyer and Kristen Campbell were under siege.
If it hadn’t been for the play of the team’s goaltending, the Goldeneyes would’ve been inserted into the Gold Plan a long time ago. The team is only fifth in goals allowed (70) thanks to Maschmeyer and Campbell, who gave Vancouver a chance on most nights. However, the support in front of them has been far from helpful.
Final Thoughts
The 2025-26 season will go down as a disappointment for the Goldeneyes, and it’ll certainly send a message to future expansion teams to dampen expectations, regardless of how exciting the roster’s makeup looks on paper.
That said, if Gardner Morey can bring back most of the players from this year and survive another wave of expansion, the building blocks are in place for a much better sophomore campaign for the franchise.
You just have to wonder, had this team been able to figure it out (or have been based on the eastern seaboard), how dominant they could’ve been.