7 takeaways from Wisconsin women's hockey's 7-goal win
The Wisconsin Badgers debuted several players in new positions, including a move for the nation's reigning goal-scoring champ
Wisconsin women’s hockey started this season doing what it did most of its previous campaign: winning. Despite bringing back so many members of last year’s national title-winning squad, however, the Badgers won with a very different-looking lineup.
UW scored at a rapid clip of 5.39 goals per game in 2024-25. That mark, which was by far the best in the country and the best by any team in 22 years, is not one it can reasonably expect to meet again this season. Still, when the scoreboard only read 1-0 in favor of Wisconsin at the first intermission, it felt a bit clunky.
That feeling was erased roughly midway through the second period.
Wisconsin scored five second-period goals in rapid succession. Beginning at the 9:03 mark, UW went on to score, on average, once every two minutes and eight seconds, with the fifth, a dynamic individual effort beginning from behind the Badger blue-line by forward Cassie Hall, coming just 19 seconds before the second intermission.
Wisconsin (1-0-0, 1-0-0 WCHA) added another three goals in the third for a 9-2 victory over the Bemidji State Beavers (0-1-0, 0-1-0 WCHA). A win over Bemidji, Wisconsin’s 20th in a row, has become routine, but the lineup Badgers head coach Mark Johnson employed was far from it.
Wisconsin women’s hockey scores with skill and smarts
1: Kirsten Simms did not leave goals on the table
Kirsten Simms got off to a fast start on the season with two goals and an assist. The game’s first star scored on a pair of point-blank wristers. Her second goal, which came on a two-on-one with sophomore Hannah Halverson, may have been emblematic of the way Simms improved her game in the offseason. Simms had the option to pass on the rush, but kept the puck and scored herself. Something Johnson thought the senior could have done more often last year.
Despite Wisconsin putting up record numbers as a team, Simms scored eight fewer times in her junior campaign than she did as a sophomore. There was even a cold stretch where the winger scored only once in eight games, and Johnson noticed.
“My thought process that, you know, during that stretch where maybe things weren’t going well, she was passing maybe more than she was shooting and getting a bunch of asssists, but wasn’t scoring,” Johnson explained. “Those are moments where a player can learn about herself and grow from it.”
It appears Simms has grown, as she led all skaters on Friday night with five shots on goal.
Time will tell if this is a grander shift in Simms’ habits, or just another instance of her tormenting Bemidji State. In 15 career games against the Beavers, the Plymouth, Michigan native has tallied 18 goals and 16 assists with five multi-goal games and three hat tricks.
2: Maggie Scannell finds ways to score
It was Maggie Scannell with the hat trick on this particular Friday night in Bemidji. The sophomore, whom Johnson moved from center to wing in the opener, scored once on a clean shot from the slot, but scored another pair by simply getting the puck to the net.
Scannell seems to innately understand that goals come easier when putting the puck in and around the crease. Whether she is bouncing the puck off a defender’s skate, throwing it up into the air, or tossing it off the back of a goaltender, she does the dirty work to get on the score sheet. The righty was rewarded for that hard work with her first collegiate hat trick in the opener.
Badgers with firsts
3: Adéla Šapovalivová’s third-period assist
“Starting at center for the Wisconsin Badgers, wearing number 26, it’s…”
Not, Casey O’Brien?
Yes, the top-line center listed on Wisconsin’s roster Friday night was wearing 26, but it was not O’Brien, the program’s all-time leading scorer. Instead, it was rookie Adéla Šapovalivová picking up right where the previous number 26 left off by recording an assist.
In her first game, the Badgers’ first-ever European-born player muscled through a pair of Bemidji State defenders and corralled a bouncing puck before sliding it across the slot to Lacey Eden. Eden shot short-side, beating Bemidji State Ashlyn Hazlett above her glove, extending UW’s lead to 8-2.
Šapovalivová held her own, centering a top line with Olympic hopefuls Simms and Eden on either wing. Johnson could opt to continue tinkering with his lines in the early stretches of the season.
4: Charlotte Pieckenhagen is the first Badger to score their first goal
Two rookies cracked the lineup for the season-opener, and both broke through on the scoresheet. An early third-period goal by Charlotte Pieckenhagen made her the first of Wisconsin’s five rookie skaters to record a point this season. Pieckenhagen got the puck on her stick in front of the net with no defender in spitting distance. From there, the 5-foot-10-inch forward pulled the puck from left to right and tucked it behind Hazlett’s leg.
Wisconsin will likely need more of those rookies in the lineup as the season progresses. Šapovalivová will be suiting up for the Czech national team in February at the Olympics, and up to four Badgers skaters could also be headed to the Games with Team USA.
Scannell, Halverson, and Finley McCarthy combined for 41 points as rookies last season, playing most of the year on the same line. When his best players leave for the Olympics, Johnson might again need a few rookies to step up in big spots. Pieckenhagen gave an early signal that, like last season, UW’s rookies can immediately contribute.
Curious position changes
5: Is Finley McCarthy’s move to center a sign of Johnson’s Olympic plans?
Scannell’s move up to the second-line right wing opened up her previous spot at center. Sliding over into the role on Friday was McCarthy. The sophomore centered the fourth line with McKayla Zilisch to her left and Pieckenhagen on her right wing.
McCarthy struggled at the faceoff dot, where she was by far the lowest-performing Badger of the night, winning just three of her 11 draws. If the lefty improves, it adds to the list of available options Johnson has at center during the Olympics.
Unless Johnson decides to roll only three lines, Wisconsin will need to find another center when Šapovalivová is out of the lineup. Scannell could slide back to the middle during this time. Alternatively, rookie Nicole Gorbatenko could enter the lineup as a fourth-line center.
6: Laila Edwards slides back to defense
Before Friday, Bemidji State had not scored two goals against the Wisconsin women’s hockey team in a single game in nearly four years. Not since December 11, 2021, when the Badgers captured a 5-2 victory, have the Beavers scored multiple times against Wisconsin in a game.
That streak was snapped on Friday, and UW’s Laila Edwards was a focal point of both Beaver goals.
First, rookie Maddie Kaiser beat Edwards in a battle for positioning in front of the net. Kaiser tipped in a shot from the point by Bemidji defender Carmen Bray, cutting what was a 2-0 Wisconsin lead in half.
Later, Edwards turned the puck over deep in the Badgers’ defensive zone when trying to initiate a breakout. After taking the puck behind the net, Edwards took a sharp angle up ice between the faceoff dots. While carrying the puck on her backhand, Edwards had the puck poked away by BSU redshirt senior Isa Goettl. The loose puck wound up directly on the forehand of Bemidji forward Kate Johnson, who buried a wrist shot from the high slot past Wisconsin goaltender Ava McNaughton.
Edwards, who led the country in goals a season ago playing wing on Wisconsin’s top forward line, is spending a few games at defender, seemingly because that is where the US national team plans to play the Olympic hopeful. She played defense in a handful of games with the Badgers last season.
Maybe the second goal was just a confluence of events that led to disaster. It was the first game of the season, Edwards chose to go inside when she could have gone outside, and if she had been skating the opposite direction behind the net, Edwards would have had the puck on her forehand, making it easier to keep the puck out of harm’s way.
Heck, Edwards may have initially been looking to pass to Simms on the left wing, but the replay showed that Simms had fallen onto the ice!
Extremely gifted hockey minds are making these lineup decisions, but this still appears to be trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
7: When do other goaltenders get an opportunity with Wisconsin women’s hockey?
One thing to watch for this season across the WCHA is how teams handle the goaltenders who might be off to the Olympics in February – especially teams like Wisconsin and the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs, which lack proven depth behind their starters.
McNaughton and Duluth starter Ève Gascon split every major conference and national goaltending award last season. Gascon was named WCHA Goaltender of the Year and All-American. McNaughton earned National Goaltender of the Year Honors. Uniting them further is their Olympic hopes.
McNaughton could be suiting up for Team USA in Italy. Gascon hopes to make the Canadian national team roster. Neither Johnson nor Bulldogs head coach Laura Schuler has another goalie on their respective roster with a single collegiate start to their name.
Perhaps a 5-2 margin at the second intermission was too slim on Friday for Johnson to entrust the third period to senior Chloe Baker, who has appeared in nine games, or rookie Rhyah Stewart. If McNaughton is going to miss significant time with the national team, Baker or Stewart will eventually have to play.
When Wisconsin defeated Bemidji 11-0 in the WCHA Tournament quarterfinal in March, reserve goaltender Quinn Kuntz played the final two periods in relief of McNaughton. The Badgers raced out to an 8-0 lead in the first period of that game.
For what it is worth, Gascon has played every second in net for Duluth through their first four games of the season as well. The Bulldogs have a bye next weekend before they visit Madison the weekend of October 10th.
