I can see the comments now and I hear you, Vancouver and Seattle were able to just take some talented goalies then slapped them onto their rosters. I get it. What more could you possible talk about? Just have good goalies as it’s easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Unfortunately for you, you’ve come across a total nerd, so grab a snack as we decipher the thinking that went into creating each team’s goalie depth chart.
In bigger pro hockey leagues, such as the NHL, teams sometimes need to get creative in finding solutions when it comes to building out their goalie depth chart. For the PWHL, with eight teams now, teams don’t have to get super creative in how they build out their goalie depth chart. They don’t need to make do with what is available. PWHL teams have options and can build their goalie depth chart how they see fit. Vancouver and Seattle have certainly taken full advantage of the depth of goaltending in women’s hockey and built their goaltending depth charts how they see fit with few restrictions.
For Seattle, they went with a more traditional approach of having their goalies fit into roles on the depth chart. The thinking in Seattle is that Corinne Schroeder is the undisputed number one goalie. She’ll carry the workload and hopefully be the answer to the Frankels or Desbiens of the league. Schroeder is certainly capable of delivering elite play as she showed in the 22-23 PHF season (named Goalie of the Year) and the 2024 PWHL inaugural season (top three finalist for Goalie of the Year). She had some struggles last season but ultimately still ended up being solidly average, which should be all Seattle needs from her.
It’s with that level of confidence in Schroeder having a good floor and potential to be elite that Seattle decided to draft Hannah Murphy and sign CJ Jackson to play behind Schroeder. I want to make something clear from the start that Murphy and Jackson are PWHL goalies. They both belong in this league. That being said, if either one needs to take the number one role from Schroeder for whatever reason, it’s a sign things have not gone well for Schroeder.
It’s not as though Murphy and Jackson aren’t going to be working hard to earn more starts. It’s fairly clear that Jackson has earned a reputation as one of the hardest-working goalies in the league ,which even earned them a trip to Calgary to participate in on-ice activities with Team Canada Olympic hopefuls. Jackson earned their contract with Seattle because of their work ethic and showed in their two games this past season that they won’t lose you a game. Jackson is someone a coaching staff can have confidence putting into the net if you suddenly need a start from them and will be a locker room bonus.
There’s no guarantee that Jackson will be stuck in the number three goalie spot in Seattle, but Meghan Turner is at least looking for competition at the number two spot. Murphy was drafted 15th overall by Seattle in the second round of the 2025 entry draft. You don’t take the first goalie off the board, one pick after Gwenyth Philips was drafted in 2024 at 14th overall, if you don’t have plans on her seeing more games than a number three goalie. From a stats perspective, it’s easy to see where that expectation comes from for the layperson.
Murphy played mostly in a tandem role with Kayle Osborne for the three years they were together at Colgate. Then Murphy took over the number one role at Colgate with Osborne graduating leading Colgate to the ECAC finals and the NCAA national quarterfinals. To drive the point home more, Murphy didn’t have a single save percentage in her four years at Colgate below a 0.930 SV%. It’s not too difficult to see why Seattle was interested in taking her so early in the draft.
Another aspect Seattle surely considered was the play similarities between Schroeder and Murphy. It’s not hard to look at the Seattle roster on Elite Prospects and see that Schroeder and Murphy are just about the same size at 5’ 11” and 5’ 10” respectively. There’s a benefit to having two similar goalies on the roster. It makes it easier on the defence to not need to change up their defensive play depending on which goalie is in net. The defence can have some kind of expectation as to what will happen behind them no matter who is in net.
This is a noticeable contrast to the way that Vancouver has set up their goaltending depth chart. Gardner Morey has went the path of a tandem, or at least a potential tandem. When Emerance Maschmeyer was signed during the signing period of the expansion process, it opened up a field of opportunity for Vancouver. They could lean on Maschmeyer as the number one goalie and no one would bat an eye. Maschmeyer has more than proved herself as being one of the best goalies in the game today and the Ottawa Charge owe her more than fans realize.
She was the main reason that Ottawa was in contention for a playoff spot in the inaugural season and when Ottawa needed a goalie to keep them afloat until they found their game in the last third of the season, Maschmeyer stepped up. She was a leader and a star in Ottawa, an easy pick up for Vancouver. However, there is still the issue of how her season ended, which was with an injury.
This left Vancouver with two paths to choose from. Do you trust that Maschmeyer is back to who she was pre-injury and therefore could go the Seattle route with a more traditional goalie depth chart? Or, do you want to try and find someone who can be in a potential tandem with Maschmeyer in case her injury is aggravated?
For those that don’t remember the trade that Vancouver made at the 2025 PWHL Entry Draft with the Toronto Sceptres, Gardner Morey decided to go with the second option by trading for Kristen Campbell. I understand that publicly, and maybe even in a front office or two, Campbell’s stock is about as low as it can be. She was left off the Canadian roster for the second set of Rivalry Games, she wasn’t in net for the elimination Game Four vs Minnesota, and reportedly had her salary retained in the trade to Vancouver.
This is a very understandable gamble from Vancouver to be ready for anything to happen to Maschmeyer. Gardner Morey might be new to the PWHL, but she’s not new to hockey, and she’s clearly has paid attention to the happenings of the PWHL, where goalie depth is proving to be quite important. Minnesota has won the only two Walter Cups with no clear number one goalie. Maddie Rooney and Nicole Hensley both saw notable time in net for the Frost for both Cups. Look at Maschmeyer’s former team where she went down with an injury and it didn’t matter because Gwenyth Philips was right there.
Campbell has taken a lot of criticism publicly from fans and there’s certainly been speculation among even media members about deserving her spot on Team Canada for a few years now. This is a low point in her career, however this just made it easier for Vancouver to solidify their goaltending depth. Let’s be clear about this: Campbell is a quality PWHL goalie. She won the 2024 PWHL Goalie of the Year Award and maybe the voters did choose her based on her 16 wins, maybe they didn’t.
Campbell earned it, though, because the stats back her up. Among goalies with +10 starts, she finished third in quality starts percentage (0.626) and third in goals saved above average per 30 minutes (0.172), while tying for the league lead in starts (22). Campbell was an absolute workhorse for Toronto in 2024, and followed up her great regular season with a 0.962 save percentage, leading the 2024 playoffs. Even this season, despite all the turmoil, she finished with a respectable 0.619 quality start percentage and earned her way back onto Team Canada for the 2025 IIHF World Championship, taking the number-two spot behind Ann-Renee Desbiens.
What went wrong in Toronto for Campbell deserves its own article, and it looks like Vancouver is on the same page as me in that Campbell was unfairly maligned for Toronto’s issues. Campbell is capable of being a quality number one goalie in the PWHL and has shown it. It’s possible that being in a more tandem-type role works better for her, especially now, to rebuild her confidence. In terms of gambles, this is one of the better ones to make. Vancouver can now roll out a higher end version of the Minnesota tandem that’s won two Cups.
It doesn’t even matter that Vancouver hasn’t signed a third goalie yet. So far, all we do know is that former Chinese Olympian and Princeton University netminder Kimberly Newell has been signed to a camp tryout. Maybe they bring in another goalie to add competition or just wanted Newell’s commitment to camp before signing her onto the roster. If it’s Newell or someone else, they get to just learn from two goalies with all the knowledge you could ask for from a PWHL goalie. They’re in the Jackson and Logan Angers role from last season.
The focus though for the coaches is making the Maschmeyer-Campbell tandem work and it shouldn’t be that hard of a task. Campbell has plenty of experience being goalie partners with Maschmeyer from their time together on Team Canada and also in 2022-23 playing together for Team Scotiabank with the PWHPA. They play two different styles, which is going to force the players up front to adjust somewhat. However, Maschmeyer is at such an elite level that she’s capable of playing in most defensive systems.
If Maschmeyer has injury problems, then Vancouver is covered because they have a proven pro ready to take the workload. It’s different from Seattle, who is all in on Schroeder, with a lot of unknown behind her. The unknown isn’t about the floor of play from Murphy or Jackson, as every PWHL team plays a high enough level of defence. The unknown will be what is the ceiling for Murphy and Jackson.
The upside for Seattle by going the traditional goalie depth chart route is that they theoretically, because we don’t know exact PWHL salaries though we can make a good estimate, only need to pay one goalie quality PWHL goalie money which freed them up to bring in the forwards they did which we’ll get to later. Even with salary allegedly retained on Campbell, neither her nor Maschmeyer are going to be making average or less. How much or little you spend on goaltending will impact how you fill out the rest of your roster as we’ll see during the rest of this series.
