A late season slide down a slippery slope is no good for any team, especially if the slide is from first place, the slope a treacherous Western Collegiate Hockey Association, and the team the Wisconsin Badgers. The men's hockey squad has fallen from grace in the past few weeks, descending not so gracefully from the highest rankings of college hockey. The once dominant Badgers were riding atop a 18-2-2 record Jan 14. The team had just swept the fifth-ranked Tigers of Colorado College in a road series and the Badger icers seemed invincible.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Every Badger fan knows the story of junior Brian Elliott's injury by now, and also knows of the woes that have seized the Badger ice machine.
The Badgers are in a slide. Since Jan. 20, Wisconsin has amassed a 3-7-1 record and has fallen from the top spot in both the NCAA and the WCHA. Granted, two of those losses came against Denver, now the No. 2 team in the WCHA, when freshman netminder Shane Connelly was fresh from the bench. Also know that another pair of losses came against Minnesota that following weekend now the No. 1 team in the WCHA.
Those four losses could have been survived; its the 4-1 loss and failure to sweep Minnesota-Duluth, the No. 9 team in the WCHA, and the sweep by Minnesota State, 6-4 and 7-3, that really hurts. These losses, to a pair of teams which an average fan would assume could offer little contest to the Badgers, Elliott or not, seem to point to the fact that the whole team is slipping and it may be too late for Mike Eaves and his coaching staff to right the ship.
'We just need to go back to some square-one things and Brian and the defense and the forwards and our systems play and settle things down here a little bit. They're searching for answers,' Eaves said at Monday's press conference.
The Badgers have had issues with late season play in both of the past two years. Last season, coming off a seven game winning streak, Wisconsin screeched to a halt with a 5-3 loss Feb.. 5, against then-No. 8 Minnesota. From then on it was not smooth sailing.
The Badgers finished the last nine games of the season 1-5-3. The Badgers did, however, manage to defeat Alaska-Anchorage two games to one in a best of three series in the first round of the WCHA Conference tournament'something that the Badgers couldn't manage two years ago.
After a solid end to the regular season in '03-'04, the Badgers lost a three games series by the same score to Alaska-Anchorage who had, until then, never won a WCHA playoff round.
This series looks to be the time for Eaves to make the adjustments he needs to make in order to make a successful post-season run. If the Badgers can return to the level of play they were at one short month ago, a strong run is almost certain.
'There's no easy answer to solve this riddle of how to get these boys back to the level that they were playing,' Eaves said. 'Part of it is time but part of it is trying to find the right concoction of drills and off ice things, or saying the right words that will bring them through this quicker, and without question this is one of the greater challenges for a coach.'
