The talk of Devils Lake girls’ hockey, all season long, has been Ashlyn Abrahamson.
And why wouldn’t it be? She was by far the most productive player in the state this season, helping lead the Firebirds to a state tournament run. But it wasn’t just the best individual season this year; it was one of the best individual seasons that organized girls’ hockey in the state of North Dakota has ever seen.
So, just how special was her performance?
Abrahamson collected 69 points overall with 52 goals and 17 assists. Her 69 points are tied for the 11th-most by any female hockey player in North Dakota since stats started being tracked in 2007. Her 52 goals place even higher, tied for the third-best since 2007.
In the last eight seasons, only one player has accumulated more points than Abrahamson in a season. That was Fargo North/South’s Rylee Bartz with 88 in the 2021-22 campaign.
Last year’s leader was, once again, Abrahamson. She’s the fourth player to ever lead the state in scoring twice. Bartz had been the most recent to do it from 2020-22; before that, it hadn’t been done since 2015-17. She led with 55 points last year, fueled by 45 goals; only one other player even had 20. This year, in which she scored 52 goals, nobody else even had 30.
It was pure dominance through and through. She wasn’t just the best goal scorer in the state — she was the best by a large margin.
And her performance has been important in the development of the Devils Lake hockey program. Two years ago, during Abrahamson’s sophomore season, the team went 1-20. With school size and student population working to their disadvantage, the Firebirds have struggled to make it to the state tournament.
But this season, thanks in large part to Abrahamson’s star efforts, they made it in as the No. 7 seed. In an article by The Rink Live back in early January, head coach Rob McIvor said Abrahamson wanted the team to make it back to state in her final year of high school hockey.
And she got that wish.
The season Abrahamson had is unprecedented in the Devils Lake hockey program’s history. It took until the fifth season of the program, in 2011-12, for any player to collect more than 20 points in a season. There was an even drier drought in the next three years, with the Firebirds’ top player scoring only seven, five and three points, respectively.
That 2014-15 season, when the team’s top player only had three points, was McIvor’s first year leading the club. The Firebirds went 0-20. They combined to score only five goals all season.
Calli Forsberg was the first Firebird to reach the 30-point mark, putting up 36 in the 2016-17 season. Devils Lake had goal scorers put up point totals in the 30s in the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, before Abrahamson came onto the scene in 2020.
She led Devils Lake in scoring each of her first two seasons as well with 13 and 23, respectively. Last year, with 55 points, she was not only the first Firebird to post a mark in the 50s, but the first to even surpass 40. So it’s safe to say that no Devils Lake player had reached the upper 60s, either.
Abrahamson brought a level of success that Devils Lake hasn’t seen before, and perhaps it will lead to the further growth and expansion of girls’ hockey in the area. It’s players like Abrahamson who set the tone and the expectation for an athletic program, even after they leave. If Devils Lake wants to improve its reputation and become a consistently competitive team, it needs to develop more special talents like Abrahamson (not to mention Siri Olson, Julia McIvor and the other players who made up the unit of Devils Lake’s state-bound squad).
So maybe this was the start of something great. Or maybe it’s the end of something special that won’t be replicated, and will just have to be remembered. In any case, Abrahamson left her mark on this program, and this team, and this town. And it’ll go down as one of the best seasons ever by a Devils Lake athlete.
