Seattle Accumulates One Draft Order Point in 6-5 Overtime Loss to Vancouver
PWHL Seattle Torrent

Seattle Accumulates One Draft Order Point in 6-5 Overtime Loss to Vancouver

Published on April 18, 2026 under Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL)
Seattle Torrent News Release


SEATTLE, WA - With playoff hopes and draft order points on the line, there was plenty to play for in a fiery offensive production where the Vancouver Goldeneyes emerged with a 6-5 overtime win against the Seattle Torrent with a PWHL record four-goal performance from Jenn Gardiner. Saturday's back-and-forth matchup, in front of 12,719 fans for the first edition of the Pacific Northwest rivalry at Climate Pledge Arena, saw the lead change three times as Vancouver pushed to secure the regulation win necessary to maintain their playoff hopes. The Goldeneyes ultimately tied the game at five goals apiece less than two seconds before the buzzer, and despite the overtime victory, joined the Torrent in playoff elimination being unable to catch Ottawa in the standings with their two remaining games. Seattle looked to have locked up three draft order points after Danielle Serdachny was credited with an empty-net goal to bring Seattle's lead to 5-3 with less than four minutes remaining, but with an extra Vancouver attacker and an incredible combined effort from Gardiner and Hannah Miller, the Goldeneyes drew even with two goals in less than two minutes remaining. One of Gardiner or Miller was involved in every one of Vancouver's goals this afternoon, with the duo combining on the overtime winner just 52 seconds into the extra frame. Seattle's blue liners led their offensive production with two goals from Anna Wilgren - her first as a member of the Torrent - and a goal and two assists from Cayla Barnes. Captain Hilary Knight opened the scoring for the Torrent, and Goldeneyes defender Sophie Jaques picked up three assists. Carly Jackson made their first-ever start as a member of the Torrent and the second start in their career, making 36 saves, while Kristen Campbell earned the win, entering the game in relief of Emerance Maschmeyer to start the second period for Vancouver, allowing three goals on 17 attempts.

The Goldeneyes swept the season series against the Torrent, going 2-0-2-0, as the expansion teams now battle for the first overall pick in the 2026 PWHL Entry Draft, per the league's innovative 'Gold Plan' initiative. Seattle earned one 'draft order point' with today's loss and will have two more games to accumulate points at home to Minnesota on Wednesday and Montréal on Saturday. Vancouver will be eligible to earn 'draft order points' beginning Tuesday at home against Montréal and Saturday against Minnesota. The league's other two non-playoff teams, still to be determined between New York, Toronto, and Ottawa, will have at most one game post-elimination.

QUOTES

Vancouver Head Coach Brian Idalski on the team's response after going down 2-0 early: "I think resiliency-wise, we've been pretty good about not getting too high or too low. It's nice that we went back and focused on executing and were able to chip away there in the second."

Goldeneyes Captain Ashton Bell on winning the game but being eliminated from playoff contention: "It's a bittersweet moment. Heading into that third, we knew we had to get a regulation win in order to keep moving on. That's obviously a tough pill to swallow, just knowing that this group won't be the same next year with expansion. But I'm just proud of the group and how we came back and we kept believing. To see Jenn get not only a hat trick, but four goals and to see that line do so well was pretty cool to watch."

Seattle goaltender CJ Jackson on their first start: "That was a crazy hockey game. And although it feels pretty heartbreaking right now, I know that the thing I'm going to remember is all the love I felt during that game. That was pretty special, and I just feel really honored to play for this city. I wish we got a win, but that was really special to get to experience."

Torrent Head Coach Steve O'Rourke's thoughts on the third period performance: "With five minutes left, I knew this was long from over. With [Vancouver] pushing like that, I knew it was going to be challenging to get to the very end. We haven't done anything easy this year. It's been a lot of adversity to us, and getting out to the two nothing lead, [Vancouver] crawling back into it, again, we've come back many times throughout the year, and this is one of them. We were down and could have folded the tents easy...but it's just the luck of it. But it happened. I thought CJ battled all night long and made a lot of in-traffic saves for us, and it's tough. I know the group desperately wanted that win for (CJ) tonight."

NOTABLES

Vancouver won all four games of the inaugural season series with a 10-2 advantage in points, outscoring Seattle 17-10. The Goldeneyes won the first and last games in overtime, their only two overtime wins of the season, handing the Torrent both of their overtime losses to date.

The Goldeneyes scored six goals for the first time in team history. This was the sixth time a team has scored six goals this season but first by a team on the road.

Today's seven combined third-period goals are a PWHL record, and the 11 combined goals overall tied for the most in a PWHL game this season following Vancouver's 6-5 loss to Minnesota on Apr. 4. The Goldeneyes scored 11 goals in their last two road games after scoring just nine times in their first 10 road games played in opposing PWHL markets.

Vancouver's four third-period goals are a new team record and just the third such performance in the PWHL this season. Seattle has been on the losing side of two four-goal third periods, previously in Ottawa in a 4-2 defeat on Jan. 28.

The Goldeneyes' 42 shots on goal is a new team record and the second-most the Torrent have allowed this season (45 against Minnesota on Jan. 11).

Seattle has scored five goals twice in their last three games (5-3 win on Apr. 8 in Ottawa) and three times overall (6-4 win on Jan. 20 vs. Toronto). Today's offensive output matches the five goals the Torrent scored in all three of their first post-Olympic games at Climate Pledge Arena.

The Torrent scored the game's first goal for the eighth time this season but carry a record of 2-1-3-2 in such games, the lowest point percentage in the PWHL (.458). This was Seattle's fourth loss in six games when leading after two periods, and Vancouver's third win in 16 games when trailing after two periods.

Vancouver finished the road portion of their inaugural regular-season schedule with a 3-1-1-10 record in 15 games as the visiting team and a 3-1-2-11 record in 17 games away from Pacific Coliseum when counting two Takeover Tour games in Edmonton where they served as the home team.

Jenn Gardiner became the first player in PWHL history to score four goals in a game, doubling her first 27-game output as a Goldeneye to surpass her previous career high of five goals in 30 games as a Montréal rookie. Before this afternoon, the Surrey, BC native had never recorded more than one goal in a game and had only four prior multi-point performances in her career, her highest coming with a goal and two assists on Jan. 29, 2025. Her four goals were scored on a career-high six shots to lead all skaters today, finishing the season series with five goals and three assists in four contests, accounting for half of her season's 16 points.

Hannah Miller became the first player in PWHL history with two career four-point performances after also scoring two goals and two assists on Feb. 19, 2025 with Toronto. It's the first multi-goal game of the season for the North Vancouver-native and the first time reaching the back of the net in back-to-back games this season. Her 16 points (6G, 10A) are tied for second in team scoring.

Anna Wilgren scored her first two goals as a member of the Torrent, which also stood as the defender's first regular-season multi-point performance of her career. The goal snapped a nine-game pointless drought, the longest of her career, and brought the Wisconsin native to seven points (2G, 5A) on the season, including four against Vancouver (2G, 2A), tied with Cayla Barnes for the season's most among Seattle defenders.

Barnes recorded the first multi-point game of her career with a goal and two assists. The Californian defender's third goal of the season, and second in three games, brought her to a new career-high and the most among Seattle's blue liners, surpassing the two goals she scored as a Victoire rookie last season.

Danielle Serdachny's two points this afternoon continued her post-Olympic streak of not going more than one game without a point. The Edmonton native is up to 12 points (5G, 7A) across Seattle's 14 second half games, with three of those games producing multi-point performances. Her 16 points (7G, 9A) in 28 games has doubled her rookie total in 30 games with Ottawa (2G, 6A).

Hilary Knight scored for the first time in PWHL action since captaining the U.S. to Olympic gold and recorded her first multi-point performance since Dec. 17, 2025 when she tallied two assists against Ottawa. The Seattle captain, now with 13 points on the season, logged 23 minutes and 56 seconds of ice time for the most among Torrent forwards and her second most this season, just 11 seconds fewer than the time on ice she recorded at Madison Square Garden.

Sophie Jaques took over the Goldeneyes lead in scoring, recording a trio of assists for the second time in her career, last coming exactly two years ago on Apr. 18, 2024 with Minnesota against Montréal. It's the Canadian defender's second three-point performance in four games, after tallying a goal and two assists on Apr. 4 vs. Minnesota. She's now up to 17 points (8G, 9A) in 28 games, tied for third among PWHL defenders, and became the first defender in PWHL history to record 100 shots on goal in a season and moved one point away from becoming the first defender to 50 career points.

Sarah Nurse became the 16th player in PWHL history to record 50 career points (24G, 26A) with a primary assist in her 62nd game. The Goldeneyes alternate captain has recorded a point in all four games against Seattle (2G, 2A) and has points in back-to-back games for the first time post-Olympics.

Michelle Karvinen's primary assist this afternoon snapped a seven-game scoring drought that matched the longest of her season after she went seven games without a point from Dec. 3 to Jan. 3. The Finnish forward is up to eight points (3G, 5A) in her inaugural PWHL campaign.

Abby Boreen also broke a seven-game drought with her primary assist, bringing her to seven points on the campaign (4G, 3A). The American forward also went seven games without a point from Dec. 16 to Jan. 17.

Anna Meixner has points in back-to-back games (1G, 1A) for the first time in her PWHL career, after recording her first Goldeneyes goal last game against Seattle.

Theresa Schafzahl tallied her fourth assist in her ninth game as a member of the Torrent. The Austrian winger's record of two goals and four assists with Seattle now identically matches her performance across 19 games to start the season with Boston.

Julia Gosling got back on the scoresheet with her 13th assist and 19th point of the season, after Seattle's leading scorer did not record a point last game against Vancouver. The Canadian forward had scored in every other contest against their Pacific Northwest rivals this season now with two goals and two assists in the season series.

Emily Brown's third assist of the season matched her career-high set in each of her first two seasons with Boston and broke a 15-game scoring drought for the defender and alternate captain.

Aneta Tejralová returned to the scoresheet for the first time in four games with her sixth assist of the season, most among Seattle defenders. The Czech Olympic captain brought her season points total to seven in 21 games for the Torrent, three shy of her career-high 10 (1G, 9A) set across 30 games last season for Ottawa.

Alex Carpenter won 21 faceoffs this afternoon to set a new PWHL single-season record of 410 faceoff wins (59.2 win percentage), surpassing Marie-Philip Poulin's 403 wins (60.2 win percentage) set last season for Montréal.

Carly Jackson made their first start with the Torrent and second appearance after playing the second half of Tuesday's game in relief. Their 36 saves is a new career high, surpassing the 25 made in an overtime win for Toronto in a debut performance last Apr. 29. 2025.

Kristen Campbell came into the game in relief for the second time this season for her 12th overall appearance as a Goldeneye. The Manitoban goaltender stopped all nine shots faced in the second period before giving up 3/8 in the third and earned her fourth win of the season.

Emerence Maschmeyer made nine saves and allowed two goals in her lone period of action for the Goldeneyes. The Canadian veteran netminder was between the pipes for 60 or more minutes in all three of Vancouver's wins over Seattle and had allowed only two goals in her previous two starts against the Torrent with a .969 save percentage across those games.

Izzy Daniel missed her first game of the 2025-26 regular season, scratched from the lineup with an upper-body injury. She exited Tuesday's game after a deflected puck hit her in the side of the head.

THREE STARS

1. Jenn Gardiner (VAN) 4G

2. Hannah Miller (VAN) 2G, 2A

3. Anna Wilgren (SEA) 2G

STANDINGS

Vancouver: 32 PTS (8-2-4-14) - 7th Place

Seattle: 27 PTS (7-1-4-16) - 8th Place

UPCOMING SCHEDULES

Vancouver: Tuesday, Apr. 21 vs. Montréal at 7 p.m. PT / 10 p.m. ET

Seattle: Wednesday, Apr. 22 vs. Minnesota at 7 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. CT / 10 p.m. ET

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Professional Women's Hockey League Stories from April 18, 2026


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