After prolific college career, top prospect Casey O'Brien aims to bring 'fearless' game to PWHL

Inside Casey O'Brien's bedroom closet at home in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., you'll find several pieces of paper, some with words and others with pictures, taped to the inside of the door.

They're a visual reminder of everything she wants to achieve in hockey, and a glimpse of what she's working toward every time she opens the closet door.

As she checked goals one off the list, she'd move each slip of paper from one side of the closet to the opposite.

Earning a Division 1 college hockey scholarship? She checked that off when she went to the University of Wisconsin.

Making the Under-18 Women's World Championship? O'Brien did that twice, and won gold with Team USA in 2018.

Winning a national championship? She did that three times in five seasons with the University of Wisconsin Badgers, including this past season.

Winning the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best player in college hockey? She was finally able to cross that goal off the list in her 5th year of college. Her 88 points in 41 games this past season earned her the award over Wisconsin teammates Laila Edwards and Caroline Harvey.

It wasn't on her list of goals to become Wisconsin's all-time leading scorer with 265 career points, surpassing women's hockey legend Hilary Knight in the process. She couldn't have imagined that. But she did that, too.

By next week, she'll achieve another goal she didn't know was possible when she started visualizing her dreams: getting drafted into the PWHL.

The 2025 PWHL Draft is set for June 24 in Ottawa, and O'Brien is projected to be drafted high in the first round, thanks to her hockey IQ, vision and skating. 

She's a 200-foot centre who can drive her own line, fuelled by pure competitiveness and smarts.

"She's the kind of player you can