The Vancouver Goldeneyes were the lone PWHL team to have a defender, Sophie Jaques, finish with their team’s points lead by the end of the 2025–26 season. Don’t be surprised if Vancouver finishes the 2026–27 season with the same outcome.
The Vancouver Goldeneyes were the lone PWHL team to have a defender, Sophie Jaques, finish with their team’s points lead by the end of the 2025–26 season.
They were also one of only two teams to have two defenders (Jaques, Claire Thompson) finish within their top-five in points, with the Boston Fleet being the other.
Don’t be surprised if Vancouver finishes the 2026–27 season with the same outcome.
With standout defender Caroline Harvey officially a member of the Goldeneyes, having been selected first-overall at the 2026 PWHL Draft on Wednesday, the offensive firepower of Vancouver’s blueline is only set to get stronger.
Caroline Harvey Brings Her Success To Vancouver And The PWHL
Though she’s only 23, the defender’s accolades speak for themselves. She’s put together back-to-back 60+ point seasons with the University of Wisconsin, playing in 41 games in 2024–25 and 33 in 2025–26 respectively. Harvey has also performed at the highest levels of women’s hockey and dominated, tying Team USA teammate Megan Keller for the points lead at the 2026 Olympic Games with nine in seven games. Her ease in taking over the competition ended in her being named the tournament’s best defender and MVP (among a Gold medal and All-Star team nod).
There are many, many other things on Harvey’s résumé that point to how skilled of a player she is — two IIHF World Championship best defender titles, three NCAA Championships, and a Patty Kazmaier Award, for example. Given Vancouver’s offensive woes from the previous season, and how much their top-pairing of Jaques and Thompson stepped-up to help provide points, Harvey should fit easily into a Goldeneyes puzzle that found itself slightly scrambled through the expansion process.
"They do well of shutting the play down, and then to go on to the offensive attack, and you could see within their games leading up to the end of their season, I feel like they were finding their groove, and it was so cool to see," Harvey said in a media availability after being drafted. "They have such great players there, and I'm just so excited to join the squad, and they've got a great GM, and I'm sure they're going to have an amazing coach too soon enough."
Defence Was The Goldeneyes’ Offence In 2025–26; Will That Change With The Addition Of Harvey?
Despite there being high hopes for the Goldeneyes’ forward core heading into the 2025–26 season, from an offensive standpoint, it was the defence that led the way for Vancouver at the beginning. Through the Goldeneyes’ first five games of the season, Jaques and Thompson combined to put up three goals and five assists. This included a two-point game from Jaques in Vancouver’s 4–0 win against the New York Sirens in December.
Since the end of the season, there’s been one big question mark surrounding the team’s defence. Thompson, one of Vancouver’s initial five expansion signings and now an unrestricted free-agent, will be considering the future of her PWHL career moving forward. While the defender has yet to announce her decision, in the event that she does decide to move on from professional hockey, she’ll leave a big hole on Vancouver’s blueline that would best be filled by a player of Harvey’s calibre.
While Jaques can create plenty of offence on her own, the mobility of Harvey’s game will give Vancouver much more creative freedom in the O-zone. Stockpiling offence on the blueline by pairing Jaques and Harvey together is one way the Goldeneyes could go about things.
"It'd be an honour to play with her. I hope I get the opportunity to be her D-partner at some point," Harvey said of potentially having Jaques as a D-partner in Vancouver. "Her reads for the game, and just her ability to make split-second decisions is very good, and her shot is pretty unbelievable."
What they could also do is separate the two — perhaps mixing them up with the pairing of Ashton Bell and Mellissa Channell-Watkins — to disperse the offence a little more evenly throughout the lineup.
Harvey will be noticeable in nearly all facets of the Goldeneyes’ game come puck-drop for the 2026–27 season, but one area that she’ll help tremendously in is on the power play. Vancouver finished the season with the league’s worst player-advantage at a 10.7% success rate, scoring only eight times on 75 opportunities. For reference — exactly half of these power-play goals came from Vancouver’s blueline. Having a player that can break the puck into the O-zone easier, like Harvey does, will help produce traffic closer to the net and give Vancouver’s forwards a better chance at scoring.
More Roster Changes After PWHL Expansion And The Draft
A potential Thompson departure isn’t the only thing that has created questions for the Goldeneyes’ blueline. Vancouver also lost up-and-comer Nina Jobst-Smith and defensive-defender Sydney Bard to PWHL Detroit in the expansion process.
The gaps in their blueline resulted in Vancouver targeting some defenders during the 2026 PWHL Draft, aside from Harvey. The Goldeneyes ended up selecting defender Jules Constantinople with the 25th-overall pick, adding the defensively-minded defender with an eye for offence to their group. Constantinople, who was named Hockey East’s Defender of the Year, spoke on the growth of her game through her time at Northeastern during her draft-day media availability.
“I do take pride in being defensive-first, blocking shots, getting breakouts, but I think why it makes me so good is that I’m able to jump in at the right point. It’s not too overly aggressive, but when I’m needed, I will jump in and I will contribute [to] the offence any way I can.”
The other defender Vancouver opted to select was University of Minnesota-Duluth alum Ashley Messier, who the Goldeneyes selected with their fifth and final pick of the night. An NCAA ECAC champion with Cornell University, Messier spent four seasons with Cornell before heading to Minnesota. As a right-shot defender, she racked up seven assists in 36 games with Minnesota-Duluth in 2025–26.
“I’m a two-way defender, I’m reliable defensively, but I also chip into the offence, a good skater, good first-pass out of my end.”
Other additions to Vancouver’s pool of players includes Swedish standout Thea Johansson (17th), whose 17 goals in 30 games with the University of Minnesota-Duluth led her club during the 2025–26 season. They also added goaltender Katie DeSa in the fourth round, who boasted a grand total of 12 shutouts with Penn State through the 2025–26 season.
Vancouver also swapped second-round picks with PWHL Las Vegas and traded their fifth-rounder to re-acquire forward Abby Boreen, who’d been selected during Phase 4 of the expansion process.