There's a widely-used saying in sports that suggests the truly good team beats the teams it is supposed to. In pre-season punditry, Wisconsin Badger hockey certainly fit the bill as one of the \good"" teams. Both U.S. College Hockey Online and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine had the Badgers slated as No. 10 in its polls before the season began play. Wisconsin's opponent in its first series at the Kohl Center, on the other hand, while no pushover, is not what one would call a college hockey powerhouse.
So the storyline heading into the weekend was whether one of the top-ranked teams in the nation would gel after only one week of practice and dispose of a St. Lawrence group that by no standards matched up on paper.
Things didn't look positive early Friday night, when the puck was dropped for the opening of the 2005-'06 WCHA campaign. The Saints, 17-19-2 a year ago and 1-10-1 against the Badgers all time, jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Meanwhile, Wisconsin looked ineffectual on the power play, was unable to keep the puck in the zone and managed only two shots on goal in four minutes with an advantage.
But in similar fashion to last season's opener against Mercyhurst when the Badgers trailed by two, the game gradually tilted in the home team's favor. Freshman Ben Street and junior Robbie Earl both found the back of the net in a span of 15 minutes to tie the game.
""In crunch time, that's when I kind of come alive,"" Earl said when asked about his knack for getting clutch goals.
In overtime, highly touted freshman Jack Skille, selected seventh overall in this year's NHL Entry Draft by Chicago, was credited with the game winner on what both Saints coach Joe Marsh and Badger coach Mike Eaves called a ""fluky"" goal.
There was nothing resembling a fluke on Saturday night, just brute, physical play. Wisconsin was already saddled with six infractions well into the second period when last season's WCHA All-Rookie Team member Joe Pavelski scored a short-handed goal to give the Badgers a 1-0 lead.
When Earl was tossed from the ice in the third period with a five minute major game misconduct, the Saints finally capitalized on the ninth Badger penalty. More important, the Badgers had also lost their self-proclaimed crunch-time specialist.
That fact came back to haunt them in the overtime session when junior center Kyle Rank won it for St. Lawrence on a short-handed goal 10 seconds in.
""When you lose that offense, it's going to make it tougher to score,"" Eaves said afterward about Earl's premature exit from the game.
It's tough to draw any conclusions on the Badgers from the opening series of the season, much less against a non-WCHA opponent.
""It's tough to get going in games again,"" noted Eaves. True, but a national title contender like Wisconsin should have two in the win column. They have two weeks to regroup before WCHA play begins.
