First Shift: Lacey Eden Brings a Champion’s Edge to Las Vegas
Written by Maria Kaczmarek
Lacey Eden was four years old the first time she stepped onto the ice, in a state that had never sent a single player to the sport’s top professional league. Twenty years later, she is helping change that. When PWHL Las Vegas called her name fifth overall at the 2026 PWHL Draft, Eden became the first Maryland-born player ever selected in league history, and a University of Wisconsin legend stepped into an entirely new chapter: helping build a franchise from the ground up.
It’s a milestone that reaches well beyond her own career. Eden has talked openly about what it means for the girls coming up behind her back home in Annapolis, girls who grew up the same way she did, with the Washington Little Caps youth program and not much else pointing toward a future in the sport. She’s now living proof that the path is real.
Eden’s path to that moment started long before the draft stage in Detroit. She spent five seasons at Wisconsin and left as the first four-time national champion in NCAA women’s hockey history. Her final season was her best: 29 goals and 48 assists in 41 games, plus a captaincy she earned after several Badgers teammates left for Olympic duty.
Eden herself was left off the U.S. Olympic roster for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, a decision that could have derailed a lesser season. Instead, she leaned into the added responsibility and helped carry Wisconsin to another title.
That response says as much about her game as it does her mentality. Eden is an explosive, high-pace skater whose forecheck creates chaos for opposing defenses, paired with playmaking instincts and detail away from the puck that project well to the professional level.
She’s not just a scorer. Her two-way habits and penalty-kill reliability make her the kind of forward a coaching staff can trust in nearly any situation, which matters enormously for a team that doesn’t have an established identity yet.
That’s exactly the role Las Vegas needs her to fill. As one of the league’s newest expansion franchises, PWHL Las Vegas has no established PWHL history or identity to lean on. Eden and fellow first-round pick Tessa Janecke are expected to become part of the foundation the franchise builds around, playing for head coach Kim Weiss, herself a first-year PWHL head coach making her own transition.
Eden’s adjustment ahead is twofold. On the ice, she’s moving from a program with championship pedigree into a roster being built from scratch, where chemistry and systems still need to be established. Off the ice, she’s adapting to a market that has never even hosted a PWHL Takeover Tour game. However, the success of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights has fueled a reported 600% jump in local youth hockey participation, particularly among girls.
For a player who has spent her career adding championships and firsts to her résumé, building something new might be the most fitting next step. In Las Vegas, Eden has the chance to help shape the identity of a franchise from the ground up, while back in Maryland, the next generation of girls now has someone from their own community to look to as proof that the highest level of hockey is within reach.
