Wisconsin forward Casey O’Brien came into this season as a two-time National Champion, Patty Kazmaier Award Top-Ten Finalist and having led the Badgers in all offensive categories last season. And this year she was even better.
O’Brien is the USCHO Player of the Year because she became a dynamic two-way player who dominated in the faceoff circle and made herself into one of the best centers in the country. The senior from Milton, Mass. was second in the country with 73 points (18 more than her previous career high) on 23 goals and 50 assists (21 more than her previous career high). Her 858 faceoffs taken were fourth most in the nation and her 59.2% win rate ranks fifth among players with at least 500 faceoffs taken.
She’s just the ninth player in NCAA women’s hockey history to register 50 assists – the last (and only one since 2005) was Amanda Kessel in 2013.
And she got better as the season wound down. Over the 23 games of the second half of the season, O’Brien averaged 2.04 points per game, with 15 goals and 32 assists. She came in clutch, scoring 1/3 of her goals in the final eight games of the year, including game winners over Ohio State in the conference championship game and St. Lawrence in the NCAA Quarterfinals. She added 12 assists over that same stretch. She was First-Team All-WCHA, WCHA Tournament Most Outstanding Player, a Patty Kazmaier Award Top-Three Finalist and named a First-Team All-American.
With a host of talented teammates, O’Brien stood out as she shifted her role and grew as a player and a leader who looked at her own strengths and found ways to make them even better and more impactful.
A small and deft forward who has always used her speed on breakaways, this season O’Brien harnessed her quickness and skating on both ends of the ice, becoming a more dynamic 200-foot player that could close down opponents. Her explosive first few strides had been a hallmark of her offensive play and certainly help on catching a breakaway on the backcheck, but she also learned to adapt and utilize her speed within the smaller confines of the defensive zone.
That meant winning the race to a dumped puck, getting to deflections along the boards and in the corners and putting pressure on opposing skaters who are forced into making quicker decisions – and often, mistakes. From there she wins the puck, flipping momentum and the run of play and feeding into the offensive breakouts.
With great vision on the ice and a knack for reading how the play will develop on offense, in developing a more dynamic 200-foot game, O’Brien became adept at shutting down shooting lanes and angling players to the perimeter on defense. The result is a multi-dimensional top line center who an opposing coach jokingly called a pain in the butt because it’s impossible to fully shut her down.
They might stop her on breakaways, they might be able to block or save a nasty shot that comes from her quick wrists, they might pick off her pinpoint passes to her wingers, they might use their size to pin her along the boards, they might deke around her on defense, they might beat her in the faceoff circle, the might open a shooting lane, they might keep her from pressuring the puck carrier. But they’re unlikely to be able to do all of those things all of the time.
O’Brien is feisty and tenacious and this year made herself good at so many parts of the game that the top teams in the country dreaded playing against her. She wasn’t satisfied, kept working and in doing so became a more complete player.
Congratulations to Casey O’Brien on being named the 2024 D-1 Women’s Player of the Year.
