Hilary Knight Wins Bob Allen Women’s Player of the Year Honors for the Third Time Following Another Stellar Season
If someone was designing a hockey player from scratch, Hilary Knight would be an ideal model — she has all the characteristics that you want in a star player.
“There’s a couple things that make Hillary unbelievably special,” said John Wroblewski, head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team. “She is one of the hardest workers and takes so much pride in her job. It’s amazing to watch her shift to shift and the energy output that she gives and the effort output that she puts into every single — it’s not even every single shift, it’s not even every single play, it’s every single meeting. She is absolutely dialed in at all times. It’s amazing to work around her. If there were a picture in the dictionary for professionalism, she would be right there with it.”
That combination of work ethic and skill has produced a plethora of goals and wins, leading to many medals and trophies.
Knight’s latest entry is a gold medal at the 2025 IIHF Women’s World Championship, which contributed to USA Hockey naming her the Bob Allen Women’s Player of the Year for the third time in her career.
Knight, who also won the award in 2014 and 2022, will be honored at the USA Hockey President’s Awards Dinner on June 6 in Denver.
“One of the other things that is so pivotal, and that makes her as successful as it is, she is absolutely where she is supposed to be as a hockey player,” Wroblewski said. “The joy, elation, the purpose for how she carries herself to be the most decorated scorer not only point-wise, but goal-wise in the history of women’s hockey, it’s all on display with her. The combination of her love and desire and just her purpose to be a hockey player, it’s what she was put on the Earth to do.”
Knight captained the U.S. at Women’s Worlds and led the team in scoring, helping the Americans win their 11th gold medal and 10th with Knight on the roster. She recorded two goals and seven assists in seven games. Knight also tallied her 50th career assist during this year’s tournament, making her the all-time assist leader at worlds. Her 67 goals, 53 assists and 120 points are all the most in Women Worlds history.
At the professional level, Knight is one of three finalists for the PWHL’s Billie Jean King MVP Award. With the Boston Fleet, Knight tied for the league scoring title with 29 points (15G, 14A) in 30 games, making her the first player in league history to record at least 15 goals and 10 assists in a season.
“Hilary is the [greatest of all time],” said Katie Million, USA Hockey’s director of women’s national team programs. “She does everything she can in her power to put herself in the best situation that she possibly can. As captain, that trickles down to her teammates as well. She has a very high bar that she sets for herself and for her teammates. For her to be in the top three as an MVP for the PWHL, it’s not surprising to me.”
Another part of Knight’s legacy has been the ability to perform in the biggest games. On the international stage, that means when the U.S. faces Canada. Since Wroblewski took over coaching the team in 2022, Knight has scored 15 goals in 27 games against Canada. The next three Americans combined have matched that output.
“She just continually finds ways and she puts the puck on the net from all different angles,” Wroblewski said. “It doesn’t matter who is in net, Hilary still finds a way to score. She’ll be the one that we can count on and her teammates can count on. It’s remarkable.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Source: usahockey.com