📸: Jenny Karamus
Annapolis, Maryland's Lacey Eden heard her name called fifth overall at the 2026 PWHL Draft on Wednesday, scooped up by the expansion club PWHL Las Vegas.
"I'm beyond excited, I'm excited to help build this franchise, to be in Vegas," Eden said moments after walking the Fox Theatre stage in Detroit on Wednesday night — a milestone that carries meaning well beyond her own career.
📸: PWHL Las Vegas
Eden first laced up skates at age 4 and later wore the Washington Little Caps sweater, playing for the program's U14 team as a high school freshman and its U15 squad as a sophomore. In Las Vegas, she'll skate for first-time head coach Kim Weiss, who hails from Potomac, Maryland.
"Hearing my name called on draft night would not just be an amazing accomplishment for me, but would also show so many younger girls, so many girls from Maryland, that this is a possibility now. I really hope to be somebody that these girls look up to," she said in her draft profile interview.
She arrives in the pros fresh off another standout year as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, where she captured the fourth NCAA national title of her college career — making her the only player in the history of NCAA women's ice hockey to do so.
Across five seasons in a Badgers uniform, Eden piled up 245 points in 178 games. That total includes a nation-leading 77 points (29 goals, 48 assists) this past season, a campaign that earned her a spot among the top-10 finalists for the 2026 Patty Kazmaier Award, the honor given to the best player in NCAA Division I women's hockey and the sport's answer to the Hobey Baker.
Her international résumé runs deep, too, even after a somewhat surprising omission from this year's Team USA Olympic roster. Eden owns three gold medals — at the 2019-20 U18 World Junior Championship, the 2022-23 World Championship, and the 2024-25 Worlds — alongside four silvers (the 2018-19 U18 WJC, the 2021 Worlds, the 2021-22 Worlds, and the 2023-24 Worlds).
When the Olympic cut came down, Eden redirected her energy into carrying Wisconsin through the absence of four of its top players — among them No. 1 overall pick Caroline Harvey, No. 4 pick Laila Edwards, and No. 8 pick Kirsten Simms. The draft broadcast leaned into a familiar theme: she's routinely labeled underrated, and proving doubters wrong has come to define her path. She actually came off the board earlier than many anticipated, having been pegged at seventh overall in The Hockey News' final projections.
In Las Vegas, Eden reunites with another player connected to Maryland hockey in Hayley Scamurra — the two recently took in a Washington Mystics game together.