Two teams looking to position themselves for the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs will meet in a pivotal series this weekend, as the Badgers travel to Michigan Tech.
UW (11-11-2 WCHA, 14-15-3 overall) has been playing its best hockey of the season of late, running its season-long unbeaten streak to a modest four games (3-1-0). In that span, the team has shown the ability to score (three goals per game) and defend the net (one goal allowed per game).
Over those past two series, however, the Badgers have been playing in the comfortable confines of the Kohl Center. To cap the season, UW will have to perform on the road, where it has been up and down on the year.
Head coach Mike Eaves said earlier this week that, in some respects, playing on the road has been an easier task for his group, but conceded that there are challenges in ""going into somebody else's den.""
That figures to be particularly true for this upcoming two-game set. Michigan Tech is a team that excels on home ice. This year's team (8-4-3 in Houghton) could potentially post the best record at the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena in 10 years.
Nevertheless, something about the Huskies seems to bring out the best in the Badgers, a team that is trying to reach the overall .500 mark for the first time since early November. Over the past seven seasons, UW has gone 22-3-1 against Michigan Tech, including 8-0-1 in its last nine away games.
In many regards, the series will feature two similar teams. Both are defensively oriented, struggle on the power play and are jockeying for position in the PairWise Rankings, which determines the entrants for the NCAA Tournament.
Junior wing Tyler Shelast leads the Huskies with 13 goals but ranks second in points to junior center Peter Rouleau (25, 19 assists). Michigan Tech splits the time in net between two sophomore goaltenders: Peter Nolan (7-9-2) and Michael-Lee Teslak (6-5-3).
With a mere four games remaining and the conference standings anything but settled—six points separate second through sixth place—Eaves is pressing the idea of taking it one game at a time.
""We've always been a group that has talked about controlling what we can,"" he said. ""And the next game is that control factor for us, and that will be our task.""
Both games begin at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Although there will be no television coverage, the #19 Badgers can be heard on the radio on 1310 AM.
