Wisconsin women’s hockey’s big goal engineered by key play

They wouldn’t have been in position to deliver a quick punch on Saturday without University of Wisconsin women’s hockey linemate Laila Edwards setting things up.

O’Brien reached 70 points on the season with her opening-minute goal in the Badgers’ 4-0 win over St. Lawrence at LaBahn Arena. Simms had the primary assist, her 72nd point and a little of a role reversal; it has been O’Brien setting up Simms more often in a wildly successful season for the duo.

The left side of their line has changed throughout the campaign, and sometimes within games. But it was Edwards there on Saturday, and she made an impact quickly by forcing a turnover to set up the goal that let the Badgers play with the lead and confirm a spot in the Frozen Four for the record-tying 15th time.

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O’Brien was F1, the first forechecking forward into the offensive zone on the left side after Edwards sent the puck in deep from center ice following O’Brien’s opening faceoff win. Simms was F2, and her support in the middle of the ice forced St. Lawrence’s Kristina Bahl to reverse the puck off the boards and to the other side.

It got past O’Brien, who turned to head back on defense. St. Lawrence’s Abby Hustler gave the puck to center Anna Segedi, but Edwards was waiting to make the critical play.

“She’s got such a great stick,” O’Brien said of Edwards. “She’s got such a long reach, so I figured that she was going to make that play.”

Edwards forced a turnover, and the puck bounced right to Simms, who continued the chain toward the net by backhanding it to O’Brien.

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All of that happened in the game’s first 13 seconds. The next three seconds had O’Brien finish the play with a backhand shot between Saints goalie Emma-Sofie Nordström’s pads.

“I thought, all right, five hole is my move, I might as well try it,” O’Brien said. “Luckily, it worked out.”

Edwards made the key move with confidence.

“I think I just anticipated the play well,” she said. “I knew that in the worst case, if I did miss it, we had two great D behind me.”

Her sister, Chayla, was one of them along with defender Anna Wilgren.

“But when I read the play, it’s just the F3 mentality that we’ve been practicing all year and we were able to execute,” Edwards said. “If Casey’s alone with the goalie, it’s not good for the other team.”

Like her linemates, Edwards has been on a tear over the last third of the season. She scored twice in the third period, joining Simms, O’Brien and Britta Curl with at least 20 goals; Wisconsin has four players at that level for the first time since 2011-12.

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Edwards has 11 goals and 21 points in her last 11 games, with at least one point in all but one of them. She also finished her freshman season with a surge — 11 points in her last 12 games.

That’s a strong sign from a young player who has been asked to take on roles on different lines throughout her two seasons with the Badgers.

Simms and O’Brien are rolling, too: Simms has 26 points in her last 12 games and O’Brien has 25.

It turned out that the Badgers didn’t need more than O’Brien’s early score because of a 25-save shutout by Ava McNaughton.

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“It was nice to score early but they put so much pressure on her in the first and the second, too,” O’Brien said of McNaughton. “And so without her (standing) on her head, we might not be victorious like we were. So I’m just thinking about how awesome she is.”

The opening goal was exactly how the Badgers wanted to start the game, and they had to follow it up with a steady presence to be able to send their fifth-year seniors out with a win in their last game at LaBahn Arena.

“It was nice to celebrate but we still had 59 minutes left in that game so we tried not to get too caught up in the celebration there,” O’Brien said.