Abbey Murphy has become a well-discussed name in women’s hockey this year, for both positive and negative reasons. She plays a hard, occasionally controversial brand of hockey, but is expected to be a high-impact player with an elite scoring touch. Here’s what the numbers have to say about that.
| Position | Forward |
| Shoots | Right |
| Height | 165 cm (5’5″) |
| Weight | 65 kg (145 lbs) |
| Date of Birth | April 14, 2002 (Age 24 at draft) |
| Nationality | United States of America 🇺🇸 |
| Current Club | University of Minnesota — NCAA |
Recent Statistics
Source: University of Minnesota Athletics. NCAA stats are not directly comparable to PWHL competition.
| Season | Team | League | GP | G | A | PTS | PTS/GP | PIM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | University of Minnesota | NCAA | 42 | 33 | 32 | 65 | 1.54 | 87 |
| 2025-26 | University of Minnesota | NCAA | 31 | 40 | 26 | 66 | 2.13* | 67 |
*Led all NCAA players in this stat
Who Is Murphy?
Hailing from Evergreen Park, Illinois, about a half an hour drive from Chicago proper, Murphy grew up playing hockey with the Chicago Mission for seven years. According to her interview with Jocks Next Gen, she began receiving college offers as early as twelve years old, but was only truly interested in playing for the University of Minnesota.
She has since become a primary offensive driver for the Golden Gophers.
Murphy has also become widely known with Team USA after tallying a hat trick in game one of the 2025 Rivalry Series. Her experience with the team, however, dates back to U18.
At the U18 World championships, Murphy won two golds (2018, 2020) and one silver (2019). With the senior national team, she’s been a part of two Olympic Games, winning silver in Beijing and gold in Milano-Cortina. In non-Olympic years, she’s taken part in four world championships, winning two golds (2023, 2025) and two silvers (2021, 2024).
She was widely anticipated to go first overall in the 2025 draft, but she chose to return to Minnesota for a fifth year, shaking up the draft table.
What Murphy Brings to the Table
Abbey Murphy is uniquely relentless—described as both an elite goal scorer and a pest on the ice, she’s completely unafraid of getting under the opposition’s skin.
- Elite Goal Scoring: With 143 career goals, Murphy tops the all-time list for goal scoring at the University of Minnesota, beating out established names like Taylor Heise, Grace Zumwinkle, Amanda Kessel and Hannah Brandt.
- Physicality: She doesn’t always do it cleanly, but Murphy plays a physical game that should translate well to the PWHL, granted that she stays out of the box.
- Playmaking Prowess: It’s impossible to discuss Murphy without talking about the assist from this past January. You know the one. She tips the puck to herself, bounces it between the legs of a defender and then pulls off a one-handed pass for a one-timer goal. Any PWHL team would strike gold with her puck-handling.
Areas to Develop
A major concern for Murphy going into the pros has been the rate at which she takes penalties. In 171 games across five seasons at the University of Minnesota, she took 152 penalties with a total of 357 penalty minutes.
To compare this to other forwards already in the PWHL with reputations for taking penalty minutes, the Montreal Victoire’s Abby Roque had 60 penalties and 139 penalty minutes during a 4-year collegiate career. Last year’s 1st overall pick, Kristýna Kaltounková, played in the same number of games as Murphy in college and took only 91 penalties, with 218 penalty minutes.
In a league with much stiffer competition than the NCAA, staying out of the box will be critical.
Where Could She Land?
Murphy is expected by most insiders to go either second or third overall in the draft, behind only Caroline Harvey and, in some projections, Laila Edwards.
However, don’t be too surprised if Vancouver takes her with the first overall pick.
Ahead of the expansion process, the Goldeneyes have a strong, offensively powerful blue line even without the likes of Harvey or Edwards. Defender Sophie Jaques led their scoring in 2025–26, and Claire Thompson wasn’t far behind, landing 4th in Goldeneyes scoring. With this in mind, they might benefit more from a strong forward to light up their league-worst power play than another offensive defender.
The Bottom Line
Any team that gets Murphy will receive an instant boost in offensive firepower and also notoriety. Many people who don’t typically tune in to the PWHL have taken notice of Murphy for the previously mentioned assist, which John Buccigross of ESPN called “the greatest assist of all time,” and they will be eager to see her in the pros.
It's called the greatest assist of all time. Abbey Murphy. 28 goals and 50 points leads the nation. #cawlidgehawkey 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/GnIJzHnHTW
— BucciOT.Com (@Buccigross) January 11, 2026
If she continues to play to the level she has in college and on Team USA, she should become a leading scorer in the PWHL, and barring her off-ice controversies (which mostly amount to her following Donald Trump on social media), she could become a face of an increasingly physical league.
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