NEW YORK — One month before the Professional Women’s Hockey League draft, Caroline Harvey and Laila Edwards were plotting.After a whirlwind 2025-26 season, the duo were in New York as keynote speakers at the espnW summit. For over 30 minutes, they discussed winning Olympic gold medals with Team USA — where Edwards and Harvey were among the top scorers in the tournament — and their third national championship victory with the Wisconsin Badgers.But after the panel was complete, their conversation turned to the future — and the fact that the two best friends will be separated for the first time in nearly a decade.“That’s a lot of our conversations lately,” Harvey said in an interview with The Athletic last month.At the 2026 PWHL Draft on Wednesday night, Harvey, who won Olympic MVP and the 2026 Patty Kazmaier Award as the top player in college hockey, is expected to go first overall to the Vancouver Goldeneyes. In a perfect world, Edwards, a 6-foot-1 dual threat who can play forward or defense, also lands in the Pacific Northwest, as the Seattle Torrent have the No. 2 pick. Their Team USA teammate Abbey Murphy, who was second in The Athletic’s prospect ranking in March, could also reasonably go second overall.Both Edwards and Harvey have said they’d be happy to play anywhere in the PWHL.Still, in the weeks since their decorated college careers ended, they have tried to game out scenarios where they end up on the same pro team next season. Maybe, they say, there will be a big draft-day trade. It happened in Vancouver before in the NHL. It could happen again.Realistically, though, the best they’ll be able to do is meet for lunch.“Once or twice we’ve been serious, like, ‘Yeah, this is it,’” Edwards said. “But then we come up with all these scenarios of how we’re still gonna see each other a lot.”“If we’re both out west we’d be driving distance,” Harvey said. “We could meet for lunch on off days.”To just call Edwards and Harvey best friends feels like a disservice to the nature of their connection. They’ve grown up together, going from high school to the Wisconsin Badgers and becoming Olympic gold medalists at each other’s side. Their families are so close that when Harvey won the Patty Kazmaier in March, Edwards’ 6-year-old nephew Shiloh joined the Harvey family picture. “(He’s) part of my family,” Caroline said.Edwards and Harvey won three NCAA championships during their time with the Wisconsin Badgers. (Courtesy of Laila Edwards)Now, after years of playing together, eating every meal and spending nearly every minute together, Harvey and Edwards will soon go their separate ways.“I think they’re really going to miss each other and I really hope that they’re not too far apart,” said David Harvey, Caroline’s father. “They’re best friends and I think they’ll be best friends for life even outside of hockey. They’re two different people and they just work because they love each other.”When the duo first met, Edwards was 10. Harvey was 12, and wearing a standout matte black helmet over a classic bob cut with blunt bangs.“That’s just how I remember her,” Edwards said. “She had these bangs, and the helmet was almost egg-shaped.”It was an old Easton helmet that Harvey’s father found on a local sale rack when his daughter first got into hockey. David Harvey likened the helmet — which also had a half-cage, half-bubble mask — to the Great Gazoo’s helmet from “The Flintstones.” Not that he ever told his daughter that.“She used to say people would make fun of the helmet,” David said. “And I’d be like, ‘No, it’s really cool!’”Edwards also never said a word. She was admittedly pretty shy back then. And Harvey, who joined her Pittsburgh Penguins Elite girls hockey team for a tournament that summer, was already too good to chirp. Looking back on it now, though, Edwards said, “I should have chirped her.”Less than a year later, Harvey was attending Bishop Kearney, an elite hockey prep school in Rochester, N.Y. Edwards, in seventh grade, was visiting the school as a prospective student.As an eighth grader, Harvey — whose friends call her “KK” — served as Edwards’ host, showing her around the school and hockey facilities. Edwards followed Harvey to class and went on the ice with the team to get the full “day in the life” experience as a BK student athlete. They clicked right away and within a few hours, they were playing mini sticks in the hallway.Edwards and Harvey both attended Bishop Kearney, an elite prep school known for developing talent headed to NCAA Division I women’s hockey programs. (Courtesy of Laila Edwards)“I don’t know how to describe it,” Harvey said. “It was just so light and easy. … It just made sense that we were such good friends right away.”That summer, they landed on the same team again for the annual Beantown girls hockey showcase in Boston, and after one of the games, Harvey invited Edwards back to her home in New Hampshire to watch a movie. They can’t recall the exact movie; it was definitely a scary one, they say. But, they do know they’ve been best friends ever since.When Edwards officially enrolled at Bishop Kearney in the fall, they became inseparable. For most students, Bishop Kearney is a private Catholic prep school. But for the 100-plus athletes who reside on campus, it’s also an elite hockey program with daily access to ice and training facilities, including a gym and multiple shooting rooms exclusive to players.