WCHA 2025-26 previews: Wisconsin Badgers
Wisconsin women's hockey has the most dominant roster in the country; could that be its downfall?
Ahead of WCHA conference play beginning this weekend, Badger Breakaway is previewing each of the eight teams in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. Next up, is the Wisconsin Badgers.
Wisconsin remains as dominant as ever after winning every trophy in 2024-25. The WCHA regular season and tournament title were claimed by the Badgers along with the NCAA Tournament crown. Now, they will attempt to win back-to-back conference titles for the first time in five years, but will have to do so without some of their best players against some of the conference’s toughest opponents.
Will having so many dominant players ironically be Wisconsin’s biggest weakness?
Wisconsin Badgers preview, at a glance
WCHA returning production spreadsheet
2024-25 record: 38-1-2, 25-1-2
2024-25 WCHA finish: 1st
2024-25 postseason: WCHA Final Faceoff Championship, NCAA Tournament Championship
2025-26 WCHA Preseason Coaches Poll prediction: 1st
2025-26 preseason national polls: 1st USCHO/1st USA Hockey
Preseason All-WCHA honorees
D Caroline Harvey (Preseason Player of the Year)
F Kirsten Simms
F Laila Edwards (receiving votes)
G Ava McNaughton (receiving votes)
Returning production (conference rank)
Goals: 186 (1st)
Points: 495 (1st)
Goals percentage: 84.16% (1st)
Points percentage: 80.75% (1st)
Returning skaters games played percentage: 83.99% (1st)
Goalie starts returning percentage: 95.12% (1st)
Class breakdown
6 rookies
5 sophomores
7 juniors
8 seniors (2nd)
Wisconsin women’s hockey: a preposterous amount of returning production
The numbers themselves are nearly enough to tell the story of why the reigning national champions enter the season as the unanimous top-ranked team in the country. Wisconsin returns three first-team All-Americans, the Goaltender of the Year, and another three All-WCHA honorees. With them, UW leads the league in every significant metric of returning production.
Heck, Wisconsin even leads the WCHA in blocked shots returning! To a team that probably spent less time than any other defending its own zone!
With 186 goals (more than any team in the country scored as a whole in 2024-25) and 495 points (just seven shy of doubling up Minnesota, which returns the second-most in the league) coming back, the loss of the nation’s leading scorer from the roster almost feels quaint.
Casey O’Brien’s 88 points led Wisconsin to a national title and earned her a Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, the highest individual honor in women’s college hockey. Whether it proves to be junior Cassie Hall or redshirt senior Marianne Picard, someone has large skates to fill in the Badgers’ top-line center role, but plenty of talented scorers remain in Madison.
Wisconsin returns eight of its top nine scorers. In goals, it was not O’Brien who even led the Badgers last season. That would be returning senior forward Laila Edwards. It was Edwards, alongside Preseason WCHA Player of the Year and two-time reigning Defender of the Year Caroline Harvey, who made the top-three cut alongside O’Brien for the 2025 Patty Kaz. It was only the second time since the award’s inception in 1998 that all three finalists came from the same program.
Forward Kirsten Simms and O’Brien traded spots in 2025 after Simms led the Badgers in scoring the previous year, with O’Brien right behind her. Simms and O’Brien shared the Patty Kaz finalist stage with Cornell’s Izzy Daniel in 2024.
It is not just production and accolades returning in Madison. It is also tremendous continuity. Wisconsin lost only four players from its national championship roster, the fewest in the WCHA. The Badgers had no players transfer out, and none transfer in. Again, no other team in the league can say that heading into the season.
So, Wisconsin, despite losing O’Brien, returns three Patty Kaz finalists, more scoring than seems many teams totaled last season, and has already proven that a roster nearly identical to this one can win a national title. Is this season simply a slow march to an inevitable coronation?
Is Wisconsin women’s hockey too dominant to win the national title?
Arguably no other team in the country is going to be impacted more by the 2026 Winter Olympic Games than the Wisconsin Badgers. Those three returning first-team All-Americans could all be suiting up for Team USA in Italy, along with reigning National Goaltender of the Year Ava McNaughton.
Harvey, Wisconsin’s all-time leader in points by a defender, won Olympic silver in 2022 before she enrolled at UW and is a shoe-in for the 2026 roster. Neenah native and U.S. Women’s National Team head coach John Wroblewski is so high on Edwards, that he lines her up on defense to give her the best chance at making a roster. Simms suited up in four of seven games for Team USA at the 2025 World Championships, notching four points. Forward Lacey Eden joined her Badgers teammates at Worlds after earning All-WCHA second-team honors last season.
Those four skaters are responsible for 54.84% of Wisconsin’s returning goals and 53.13% points of Wisconsin’s total returning points.
The most-likely newcomer to help backfill that offense would be standout forward and Preseason WCHA Rookie of the Year Adéla Šapovalivová, but she is the most touted rookies for a reason. Šapovalivová has been a steady presence on the Czech national team for years, with a goal and two assists at the 2025 World Championship.
Behind all the forwards, the defender, and the hybrid forward-defender, is McNaughton. The junior appears poised to make the roster for Team USA as its third goaltender. An honor, to be sure, but it puts her in the potential position of missing significant time for the Badgers while not seeing much meaningful action with two other excellent options in front of her.
Behind McNaughton is rookie Rhyah Stewart and senior Chloe Baker. Neither have logged a collegiate start.
“The big thing is, we’re aware of it. We understand it,” head coach Mark Johnson said of the challenges due to the Olympic year. “And then, we’re just going to have to make the best of the situation.
Even with players shuffling in and out of the lineup with the Olympics and any national team training sessions in the months leading up to it, Wisconsin should make the NCAA Tournament. The Badgers have qualified every season since 2013. Even if that means Wisconsin takes some losses along the way that it normally would not at full-strength, well, then maybe that is a problem come this March for the tournament’s top-seed that meets a #4 Wisconsin in the national semifinal.
Where it might make a more meaningful difference, is in the race for the WCHA regular season title. The weekend before the Olympics begin, when players competing in the Games will presumably have already joined their respective national teams, Wisconsin visits the Minnesota Golden Gophers. UW hosts the Ohio State Buckeyes the weekend thereafter. Wisconsin played both Minnesota and Ohio State in the 2025 Frozen Four. The Buckeyes tied for second in the WCHA preseason coaches poll.
“There hasn’t been a set date as far as January when they’re going to take them to head over to Italy,” Johnson said, opening-up the possibility that Wisconsin could be down its best players against other conference foes like the Bemidji State Beavers. “Once we get that, then, obviously, you know, the chunk of February, they’re going to be obviously missing because of the games. Prior to that, I’m hoping [they will] not [be gone for] many.”
Despite Wisconsin being a team defined by its continuity from last season’s national championship roster, in-season roster disruptions will likely be a dominant story all season long.