The past three weeks—true to form for the Wisconsin Badgers men's hockey team—was a symbol of their broader, middling season. One night of a two-game set underscores the grit and desire of the team to overcome scoring deficiencies as a result of the loss of their top five scorers from last year's championship season. The other contest often underwhelms observers with missed opportunities or a shortage of effort.
Each of the past three series for the Badgers (7-8-1 WCHA, 10-12-2 overall) have been splits, laying bare the team's inability to build any momentum as it heads into the final six series of the season, all against Western Collegiate Hockey Association teams.
In fact, in early December it looked as if the Badgers were going to turn their season around. Two weeks after a win against highly ranked Michigan State, the team went on the road and swept No. 10 North Dakota.
However modest, the three-game winning streak the Badgers carried into the 18th annual Badger Hockey Showdown was the season's longest.
On Dec. 19, the Badgers were soundly downed 6-2 to then-No. 15 Clarkson—the eventual tournament winner—a loss that abruptly halted their winning ways. UW admittedly came out with a lack of intensity and focus and was handed its seventh loss at home this season.
But, as has often been the case this year, the Badgers emerged with a vastly different look the next night. In the consolation match-up of its own tournament, UW smacked Providence 5-0. Any question about a bounce-back was emphatically answered by the Badgers' two goals in the first 37 seconds of the game.
On Jan. 5 and 6, the Badgers headed west to Denver, an opponent that had swept them at the Kohl Center earlier in the season. A four-game losing skid to the eighth-ranked Pioneers was extended to five in the first game of the series, a 3-1 loss. In the back end of the set, though, the Badgers looked like a different team in a 4-0 win.
""[The 4-0 win was] probably one of the best games we've played as a team all year,"" junior defenseman Kyle Klubertanz said after the game, which moved the Badgers into fifth place in the WCHA standings.
If anything, a game that head coach Mike Eaves called one of the top three performances of the season by his team gave the Badgers a needed dose of confidence going into a matchup against formidable Minnesota.
The Golden Gophers came to Madison last weekend as the nation's top ranked team. The team's impeccable credentials included a 22-game unbeaten streak (19-0-3) and only one loss. Under Eaves, however, the Badgers have a history of beating top-ranked teams at home. In addition, the UW hockey program was looking for its 1000th win during the modern era (since 1963).
With three players—sophomore forward Jack Skille, freshman forward Blake Geoffrion and freshman defenseman Jamie McBain—back from the IHF World Junior Championship in Sweden, the Badgers scored a momentous 2-1 victory over Minnesota. Senior forward Ross Carlson tallied two goals, and the Badger defense was sensational, shutting out Minnesota's vaunted power play and holding the Gophers to a season-low 19 shots.
Saturday night—unquestionably a statement game for the Badgers and a chance to get back to the .500 mark—the Badgers failed to show up for the first half of the game. That proved costly for UW, which saw Minnesota score the only goal of its 1-0 win in the first period.
""As much as I can applaud their effort in the second half of the game,"" Eaves said following the loss, ""I can equally say to them how disappointing it was that we came out that way.""
As a consequence of their imbalanced effort, the Badgers lost a golden opportunity to establish themselves in the upper half of the conference standings, and now stand in sixth place.
As has often been the case this season, the Badgers are forced to wait longer than usual to get back on the ice at a time when the team feels the urgency to prove its worth. UW is off this weekend and is not back in action until Jan. 26, when Minnesota State comes to the Kohl Center. After that series, the Badgers will face five more conference opponents in five weeks, with the goal of establishing playoff positioning.
Senior captain and team points leader Andrew Joudrey knows that task will be anything but easy.
""We realize where we need to go,"" he said earlier in the week. ""It's only going to get tougher from here on out with everybody fighting for playoff spots in our league.""
—The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report
