It’s going to be a strange season for women’s college hockey in 2025-26. It’s an Olympic year, which means that pretty much all of the top athletes in the sport will be headed to Italy smack dab in the middle of the season and will be away from their collegiate teams for a large portion of time. That makes it quite difficult to predict who will win the annual women’s MVP honor in 2026.

Here are my best guesses at some of the top candidates for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award based on early season results thus far.

ABBEY MURPHY, GR., F, MINNESOTA

Murphy is, without a doubt, the most fun and the most infuriating player to watch in women’s college hockey. If you’re a Gophers fan you love her and if you’re a fan of any other team playing the Gophers you hate her because she is so dang good and because she is an absolute punk on the ice, and I mean that in the best way possible.

The forward from Illinois has been a top candidate for the award for a while now and despite a personal career high in points last season she has still not made it as a top-three finalist for the award. Why is that? Well, simply put, fans, coaches, and other media members are not big fans of her on-ice antics and her extremely high number of penalty minutes every season (she has led the nation in PIM the past two years). And that’s understandable - it really is - but I don’t think anyone will be able to ignore her offensive numbers this year.

I am not on the voting committee in 2026 but if I was Murphy would be my No. 1 vote, barring anything drastically negative happening throughout the rest of the season. She is currently tied for first in the nation in goals (12), overall points (19), points-per game (2.38), shots on goal (54) and plus/minus (+17). You just can’t argue with those stats at this point. She already has 19 points in 8 games for the Gophers and is on another level compared to everyone else on the ice. She just needs to keep her penalty minutes down and I truly think that this is her year.

Another thing to watch with Murphy is that, I am assuming, she is likely to make the U.S. Olympic team this winter, so that could negatively impact her collegiate stats if she misses a lot of games, but I think it could also positively impact her reputation if she plays well at the event too.

PICK A BADGER, ANY BADGER

There are a lot of athletes from Wisconsin that I could put on this list. A LOT. To keep this article short, I’ll just discuss them all here and some of the pros and cons to each of them. The reigning national champions have so many talented athletes in 2025-26 that any combination of Lacey Eden, Kirsten Simms, Caroline Harvey, Cassie Hall and Laila Edwards, wouldn’t surprise me.

Eden, a grad student, and Simms, a senior forward, currently lead the team in overall scoring, tied at 14 points a piece, while Hall, a junior, leads the team in goals (8). Harvey has been a top offensive defender and will absolutely be a name in the conversation as well this season.

Edwards has been an incredible athlete as well over the past few seasons but now as a senior, Edwards has been switching from forward over to defense and has also missed some games recently due to a lower-body injury, so it’s been a bit harder to predict how her season will go at this point. It sounds like Simm also recently suffered a lower-body injury so that could be a big blow to the Badgers depending on when both Simms and Edwards are able to return to the lineup.

I think having so many Badgers so close together in talent could end up favoring Murphy this season. Last year, it seemed like a lot of voters had a consensus that Casey O’Brien was the frontrunner athlete from Wisconsin before she wound up winning the Patty Kaz that winter, but if all of the skaters this year are very close together and one isn’t the clear winner then the votes could end up being split if the committee all have a different combination on their ballot. If one athlete is able to truly separate themself from the rest of the pack though in one way or another then I wouldn’t be surprised if another Badger wins the award in 2026. Again, similarly to Murphy, the Olympics will play a factor into who makes the final ballots because a large chunk of these athletes will be on Team USA.

KAHLEN LAMARCHE, JR., F, QUINNIPIAC

I previously didn’t know too much about Lamarche prior to the start of this season, but she has made a huge impact early on for the Bobcats. She has been absolutely electric so far this fall and is tied for 1st in the nation in overall scoring with 19 points, T-1st in goals (12), T-1st in points-per game (2.38) and 1st overall in game-winning goals (4). If she can keep up this pace, I could easily see her making a splash come this spring, especially if the Bobcats can stay highly ranked in the polls.

The Bobcats are currently top-10 in the polls and are rocking a 8-0 overall record so far in mid to late October. If Quinnipiac can keep playing well and draw some more attention to itself and the talents of Lamarche then I think she has a shot of being a finalist this year. Things can tend to be very WCHA heavy lately in Patty Kaz voting so I wouldn’t be surprised if one non-WCHA player is able to break through this winter and if that one player is Lamarche.

Other frontrunners

A few other athletes that I think could crack the top three finalists if they can have big seasons are Penn State’s Tessa Janecke, Princeton’s Issy Wunder, Providence’s Reichen Kirchmair, Ohio State’s Joy Dunne and/or Emma Peschel, and Colgate’s Emma Pais and/or Elyssa Biederman, just to name a few. I personally don’t think any underclassmen are going to be finalists this season unless they have unbelievably big years since there is strong upperclassmen presence in 2025-26.