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It was the type of play that made you rewind the tape.
In a college women’s hockey game against rival Minnesota State in January, University of Minnesota captain Abbey Murphy collected the puck at the red line and skated with it to the other team’s zone.
At an odd angle, she flipped the puck up on her stick, tapped it down between a Minnesota State defender’s legs, and then manoeuvred around a second defender. She got the puck to her teammate, Bella Fanale, who scored.
It didn’t take long for the play to go viral.
“I think one of my favourite things was just how many eyes it gained for women’s hockey,” Murphy said in an interview with CBC Sports.
WATCH | Murphy’s highlight-reel assist:
That’s the kind of game-breaking skill and vision that Murphy is poised to bring to the PWHL. She’s expected to be a top-three pick at the PWHL draft in Detroit on Wednesday. The Vancouver Goldeneyes will pick first, followed by the Seattle Torrent and PWHL Detroit.
Whichever team selects her will be getting a player who will drive a top line. She’s already shown her offensive ability at the highest level: The 24-year-old had seven points in seven games in her second Olympic tournament this past February, when she brought home a gold medal with Team USA.
But her game has layers. Not only can she make you pay on a power play, she can also force you into taking a penalty that gives her team the opportunity.
In a blowout win over the Canadians in the preliminary round at the Olympics, Murphy drew four penalties. She finished the game with three assists.
Before that tournament, U.S. captain Hilary Knight described Murphy as “a cheat code.”
“Her game has just taken so many steps recently,” Knight said in a January interview with CBC Sports. “I’m scared for the professional league. She has quite the fire that she’s got in her and really can get under people’s skin, but can back it up with her level of play and can continue to push the pace.”
In other words, whichever team selects Murphy at the top of the draft will be happy to have her. The other 11 teams? They’ll dread playing against her.
“I’m someone who, yeah, likes to get into the scuffles a lot, but I also like to play my own game and score goals a lot,” Murphy said. “So we’ll see how it goes.”
Built-in toughness
You can trace that grit back to Murphy’s upbringing in Evergreen Park, a suburb of Chicago that’s surrounded by the working-class South Side.
“We’re all very close to each other,” Murphy said. “Everyone knows everyone. You go around and you’re always getting waved to or beeped at.”
Hockey wasn’t part of Murphy’s family until she started playing, but toughness runs deep. Her father, Ed, was a U.S. Marine, and her mother, Lynne, was a college softball star.
The youngest of three, Murphy’s two older brothers, Pat and Dom, wrestled and played football.
They didn’t go easy on their younger sister, something Murphy is grateful for.
“Growing up, it was a lot of tough love,” she said. “You had to kind of fend on your own and kind of grow up really fast and mature. I spent all my days when I was younger getting beat up by my two older brothers, Pat and Dom, and I owe a lot to them to this day. It toughened me up, kind of bringing me that spice I’d say that I bring into hockey every single day that I play it.”
Hockey took her to the University of Minnesota, where Murphy credits former head coach, Brad Frost, with helping her find the right balance between those “scuffles” on the ice and the type of skilled play she can pull off.
Murphy is usually one of the smallest players on the ice, at five-foot-five, but she never shies away from physicality.
In 2023-24, she racked up 118 penalty minutes in 39 games with the Gophers.
But she also finished as the program’s career goals leader (143 goals), bypassing players like Nadine Muzerall, Hannah Brandt, Grace Zumwinkle and Amanda Kessel.
You can credit a hockey IQ that’s off the charts, one Murphy developed by watching a ton of hockey. She’ll always prefer watching a hockey game instead of Netflix, and is constantly looking to pick up tips when she watches.
“The more I watched hockey, the more I learned,” Murphy said. “There’s a lot of things that I’ve learned recently from men’s hockey — men’s college hockey, men’s NHL — and that’s something that I love to do. Try to just be unique and be creative and try new things is something that I’ve definitely kind of worked on here in the past couple years.”
Skill and grit
You can call her an agitator, and that would be true. She frustrated the Canadian team over last year’s Rivalry Series and the past Olympic tournament.
After Canada’s 5-0 loss to the U.S. at the Olympics, Canadian head coach Troy Ryan described her as “very effective.”
“The instigator, agitator, kind of rat side of her is something that she does very well,” he said at the time. “There’s very few people that can play that role but also back it with some skill and some dynamic side. That’s very difficult to manage.”
Her play has drawn criticism, too. On the broadcast of that game, Canadian captain Cassie Campbell-Pascall called out Murphy for embellishment, describing it as “atrocious.”
But agitator doesn’t describe Murphy’s full skill set, which earned her a top-three nomination for the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best player in women’s college hockey this past season.
If you ask Frost, there isn’t really anyone like Murphy in women’s hockey.
“Often times, you think of ‘agitators,’ they don’t generally carry the skill of somebody like Abbey, who can play all facets of the game and then she can put it in the back of the net or set somebody up for a tap in,” he told CBC Sports earlier this year. “And all of a sudden, it just makes [opponents] even more angry because she’s got the complete game.”
It’s also a role Murphy has embraced.
And unlike plenty of players who transition from the NCAA, Murphy seems ready to handle the extra physicality that exists in the PWHL.
“I’m pumped up about it,” Murphy said about the physical play in the pro league. “Obviously I’m a smaller player, so I’ve got to protect myself in a lot of ways. I’m not always going to be the one in the corner throwing a body. I’m sometimes going to be trying to avoid it here and there for the safety of myself.”
No matter where she ends up on Wednesday, Murphy is looking forward to being part of a new team.
She also hopes more people get to know “the real Abbey Murphy” beyond her reputation on the ice.
That doesn’t bother her. She was raised in a family that’s taught her toughness, and to push past challenges. But she knows how some people perceive her.
“I get seen seen as a villain, as someone who isn’t a good person,” Murphy said. “That’s something that I’d like to share to the world is that I have a big heart. If I’m on a team with 20-something other players, I’m going to love them and I’m going to do anything I can for them and their success.”
PWHL draft order
1. Vancouver Goldeneyes
2. Seattle Torrent
3. PWHL Detroit
4. PWHL San Jose
5. PWHL Las Vegas
6. PWHL Hamilton
7. New York Sirens
8. Toronto Sceptres
9. Minnesota Frost
10. Boston Fleet
11. Ottawa Charge
12. Montreal Victoire
