After a hard-fought split at the Kohl Center, the No. 6 Wisconsin men's hockey team will travel to hostile Grand Forks, N.D.
The Fighting Sioux find themselves in the rare position of fighting for their WCHA and NCAA playoff lives. North Dakota (11-12-1 Western Collegiate Hockey Association, 16-13-3 overall) is barely in fifth place in the league, and needs points to stay there, as Minnesota-Duluth is battling hard to catch them.
The difference between fifth and sixth place in the WCHA is enormous, because the top five teams in the league host a first round WCHA playoff series. The Fighting Sioux are also currently a bubble team for the NCAA tournament and need a strong run down the stretch to capture that bid.
Wisconsin (16-7-1 WCHA, 21-9-2 overall), however, finds itself fighting for little more than just momentum going into the playoffs. The Badgers are locked in third, with their playoff positioning basically out of their hands. Because first-place Colorado College and second-place Denver play each other the last weekend of the season (each has at least a three-point lead on Wisconsin), Wisconsin would need nothing short of a miracle to the win the McNaughton Cup as WCHA regular season champion.
Even though this is a rebuilding year for the Sioux, getting points in Grand Forks will be no easy task. Unlike the great offensive teams of previous years that featured stars like Zach Parise and Brandon Bochinski, this year's squad is extremely sound defensively, starting with two very strong goaltenders, sophomore Jordan Parise and freshman Philippe Lameroux. Lameroux was one of the major storylines of the first half of the WCHA and is still having a great year. He single-handedly kept the Sioux in the series at the Kohl Center in November.
\Lameroux is [a] very good goaltender. He has good fundamentals,"" freshman forward Joe Pavelski said. ""We're going to have to get a lot of shots and a lot of traffic to beat him.""
Along with solid goaltending, North Dakota also features a stellar defensive corps that is probably the biggest, strongest and most physical in all of college hockey. The Sioux's top five defensemen have an average build of 6'2', 215 lbs., giving them an extremely imposing presence.
""They have one the toughest defensive corps in the country,' Badger junior forward and captain Adam Burish said. ""They are going to try to punish you down low, and they are going to step up and try to take your head off. It's a situation where the guys are going to have to be ready to play.""
Offense has been somewhat of a struggle for North Dakota this year, simply because of the amount of goals they have had to replace.
""You lose Zach Parise and Brandon Bochinski, and you lose a lot of offense, certainly one of their issues this year has been a lack of goal scoring,"" head coach Mike Eaves said.
The Sioux still feature a few talented scorers. Senior forward Colby Genoway leads the team with 32 points, but five players-including freshmen forwards Travis Zajac and Radislav Spirko-have scored at least 10 goals.
The sixth man will also be a big factor this weekend, as North Dakota features one the best home rinks in the country-the 11,500 seat Ralph Engelstad Arena-making that incentive to host a first round series even stronger. All the freshmen, including Pavelski, will be making their first trip to Grand Forks.
""From what I've heard [Engelstad is] unreal, top of the line, and you know there going to get a great crowd,"" Pavelski said.
Burish knows nothing will come easy in Grand Forks.
""North Dakota is going to be out there fighting for every loose puck, clawing for every point they can get,"" Burish said. ""It's going to be a good battle this weekend.\
