2024 Top 25 Under 25: Cayla Barnes (18), Gwyneth Philips (17)

18: Cayla Barnes

by J Gray

Cayla Barnes has already been to two Olympics and five Women’s World Championships with Team USA. On June 10, 2024, she punched her ticket to professional hockey, earning a first-round selection in the PWHL Draft.

2023-24 Season

After five seasons with the NCAA’s Boston College Eagles, two of which she spent as their captain, Barnes transferred to the Ohio State University for her final season of collegiate eligibility. Operating as the team’s top defender, Barnes had her highest-scoring year, finishing with 11 goals and 36 points in 39 games. However, her impact went beyond scoring; Barnes’ dynamic skating and passing skills contributed to her strong defensive presence. She finished the season a +71, 16 above the next best player, PWHL Minnesota draftee Britta Curl.

Barnes capped off her college career with an assist on the only goal in the 2024 NCAA Championship game, earning OSU’s second title. Talk about going out with a bang.

At the international level, Barnes took home her fifth WWC medal. She had two assists through seven games to earn the silver with Team USA. 

Past and Future

Barnes' career with USA hockey began earlier than many. She debuted in the Stars and Stripes two days before her 15th birthday, much younger than most North American players see IIHF action. That 2015 U18 World Championship saw her take home the first of three consecutive gold medals at the tournament. In the 2016 and 2017 events she took home the Best Defender award and she captained the team in her final year.

In 2018, Barnes made her international debut with the senior team, helping Team USA win its first-ever gold medal at the Olympics. At 19 years of age, she was the youngest player on the American squad since 2006. She has been a fixture of the American blueline ever since, including at the 2022 Olympics where she took home a silver.

Over five seasons with Boston College and one year at Ohio State, Barnes has had the opportunity to develop her game at two top NCAA programs. She has had the experience of leading a team and leading a blueline, and she will come to PWHL Montreal with the experience of winning a national championship after a complete season.

Barnes is expected to play in the top two pairings on Montréal, as chemistry works out. Her defensive responsibility and her offensive skills will be called upon in equal measure, and I would expect her to see time on the powerplay. Barnes is one of the young core of Team USA, and Montréal will be hoping she becomes the same for them.

Ranking

I believe that defenders don’t get enough credit in overall rankings because a lot of their value comes from things that we don’t have great ways to measure. Barnes may not be the highest-scoring defender, but having her on the back end immediately improves the capabilities of a team in ways that don’t show up on the scoresheet. I would certainly move her up a few spots at the expense of some of the forwards on our list.

17: Gwyneth Philips

by Geremy

It’s becoming a not-so-quiet fact that Northeastern University is becoming a goalie factory for both the men’s and women’s side. In the past half-decade we’ve seen Devon Levi, Aerin Frankel, and Cayden Primeau all reach the pros as highly-touted prospects. Not to mention Chanda Gunn and Florence Schelling who played a while back. There’s now a fourth name to add to that group and her name is Gwyneth Philips.

Philips is quite possibly one of the most interesting goalies to come out of the NCAA in a while based on her path up to this point and playstyle. We’ve seen elite goalies come out of the NCAA as the PWHL is filled with them and there’s arguably one over in the SDHL in Stephanie Neatby. None of them though play the way Philips does or came out of nowhere in the last two years of her NCAA career like Philips did.

2023-24 Season

Ignoring her career for now and its impact on Philips making this list, her final NCAA season was more than enough to put her at this spot. Without even having to dive deep into the statistical prowess of Philips her stats at first look are crazy.

She posted a 0.955 SV% in 37 games played. That means it took a little over 20 shots on goal before Philips was scored on. To put it into more context Northeastern scored 2.41 goals per game. Theoretically, that’d mean in order to beat Northeastern with Philips in net they’d have to get about 55 shots on goal. With that in mind you can see why despite having the 23^rd highest-scoring offence in the entire NCAA, Northeastern finished with the ninth highest points %. Let’s go a bit further to really hit home how good this year was for Philips. She finished second in NCAA SV% but no other 1G’s finished ahead of her and the next closest being Ève Gascon with a 0.946 SV% (why she isn’t in the Top 25 is a topic for another day). This season will put her on the NCAA record book for tenth highest SV% in a season. It’s a real shame that this wasn’t recognized for the amazing season it was and she couldn’t even get into the top-3 of Patty Kazmaier Award voting.

Past and Future

Taking a look at the rest of her career leading up to this point it feels like Philips came out of nowhere. For one she played a grand total of 16 games leading up to her fourth year in the NCAA. It’s not hard to see why when current Team USA 1G and PWHL Boston goalie Aerin Frankel was on the team. You’re not going to steal many starts away from the goalie who’d go on to win the 2021 Patty Kazmaier Award. That’s not to say though that Philips wasn’t making a legitimate effort to steal some starts. Her freshman season she posted a 0.982 SV%, her sophomore season was a 0.941 SV%, and her junior season was a 0.964 SV% – crazy numbers but a small sample size.

Once Frankel left Philips took the 1G job and didn’t look back. Her 22/23 season was exemplary, a 0.960 SV% in 38 games played. That’s the fourth-highest in a single NCAA season. Philips exits the NCAA holding over 12 NCAA records (the record book has yet to be updated past the 22/23 season), the highest NCAA career SV%, two top-10 Patty Kazmaier Award finishes, and one-time NCAA goalie of the year. All of that in two seasons.

What’s next for Philips? She’s been drafted by PWHL Ottawa and was the 3G on Team USA for the 2024 World Championships. The future is looking bright for the recently graduated goalie who looks to do battle again for a roster spot with her former goalie partner Aerin Frankel. This should be a great opportunity for Philips who will go from playing behind Frankel to learning the pro game behind Emerance Maschmeyer. Only this time we should see more of a shared starts split as Philips looks ready to not only learn from Maschmeyer but push her as well.

Ranking

On my own list, I had Philips at tenth for T25 U25. From that, I’m sure you can gather that I believe her to be still underrated and deserving of a higher spot. I think what she’s done for Northeastern, especially this year with one of the best lines in NCAA women’s hockey having graduated, is very underrated. That team went from Aerin Frankel to Gwyneth Philips without missing a beat and was competitive only because Philips raised the bar that opponents had to get over to a nearly impossible level. Now she’s coming into the PWHL looking to do the same and the odds are on her side.