Playing her first full season on defense, Edwards has 36 points (eight goals, 28 assists) in 21 games with No. 1 Wisconsin.
She has another Olympic connection in Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson, who was a key member of the “Miracle on Ice” U.S. men’s hockey team that won gold at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.
“She’s getting more comfortable back there,” Johnson said earlier this season. “She’s a real gifted athlete so some things come easy. But other things she has to work at but she’s willing to do it.”
The move came at Edwards’ suggestion to the U.S. Women’s National Team coaches to maximize her chances of making the Olympic roster.
“You know, a defenseman throughout the course of the game touches the puck twice as many times as that team’s best forward, and so they can have so much more impact,” U.S. women’s Olympic coach John Wroblewski said earlier this season.
“You’re around it more often. I think her desire to play the position is just being more involved in the play. And we thought, ‘This is a good adventure to go down and support the player through that.’”
Edwards has made her mark on international hockey well before Milano Cortina. She won gold at the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship and silver at the 2024 women’s worlds, where she tied for the lead in goals (six) and, at 20 years old, became the youngest American to receive the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award.
Edwards was an alternate captain on the U.S. team that won the silver medal at the 2022 IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship in Madison, Wisconsin.
Now she’s living her dream representing her country at the highest level at the greatest sporting event.
“This is the future in current time,” said Jaden Lindo, a Pittsburgh Penguins sixth-round draft pick (No. 173) in the 2014 NHL Draft who now manages the organization’s Willie O’Ree Academy youth hockey program. “Laila Edwards coming to the forefront and creating history with what she’s going to do at the Olympics is incredible. She’s going to inspire a lot of people, and she has a lot of people rooting for her and her success.”
