\Glory's Last Shot"" is a slogan that CBS uses to describe the PGA Championship, golf's final major. For the No. 6 Wisconsin men's hockey team, this weekend is the same type of opportunity. Even with only three points in their last two weekends, the Badgers find themselves very much alive in the race for WCHA regular-season championship, because they are hosting conference leader and No. 3 Colorado College in their final home series of the season at the Kohl Center this weekend.
Wisconsin is in third place and trails C.C. by five points, but has two games in hand on the Tigers. With three or four points this weekend, and some help from Minnesota Duluth against second place Denver, Wisconsin would be right back in the thick of the race for the championship with two weekends to go.
""We know for sure [that we can catch C.C. and Denver]. It is in the back of our minds and we really want to win that championship,"" said junior forward Ryan MacMurchy.
But getting four points this weekend will be easier said than done. Despite getting upset last weekend by last place St. Cloud State, Colorado College has been perhaps the steadiest team in hockey all season, seemingly cruising to their strong record. Last weekend, Wisconsin faced perhaps the most balanced offense in the country while playing the Denver Pioneers. Denver's archrival Colorado College is just as strong offensively, but has much less balance. Instead C.C. has an absolutely dominating first line and features two legitimate Hobey Baker Candidates: junior forwards Marty Sertich (23 goals, 35 assists, 58 pts.) and Brett Sterling (26 g., 26 a., 52 pts.). Each player is averaging over 1.6 points per game, a simply staggering number.
""We haven't quite figured it out yet [how to shut them down], but we know they're great players and every game they're going to pick up at least two total goals,"" said junior defenseman Tom Gilbert.
""It would be unrealistic to say we're going to slow them down completely, but we can hopefully draw on experiences of shutting down other talented players in the league,"" said head coach Mike Eaves.
Their presence is also a key reason why C.C. has extremely strong special teams. Colorado College has the league's best power play which is scoring on almost 30 percent of its opportunities. That power play will be butting heads with Wisconsin's league-best penalty kill.
Defensively, C.C. is no slouch either. The Tigers probably feature the top defenseman in the league in 6'2"", 212 lb. junior Mark Stuart. Though Stuart has only 13 points this season, in his own end is where he really makes his presence felt as he is tough and almost flawless defensively. Along with Stuart, C.C. has a couple of offensive weapons on the point as well in a pair of sophomores Brian Sallido and Lee Sweatt, who have 24 points each.
Between the pipes, the Tigers feature perhaps the best tandem of goalies in the country, senior Curtis McElhinney and sophomore Matt Zaba. McElhinney has 15 wins, while Zaba has nine. Each has a sparkling goal against averages under 2.25 and save percentages over .920, and this is a major reason Colorado College is having such a great year.
Certainly, picking up points this weekend will be no easy task against the first-place Tigers, but the Badgers know with this being their last home series that the time is now to make a move.
""Obviously this is a big series for us, were looking at the MacNaughton Cup, and we know it's a race,"" said Gilbert. ""Hopefully we can carry over the momentum from what we did [coming back] last Saturday. We are going to take each game one at a time, but we need two wins this weekend.""
