In realistic terms, the Wisconsin Badgers men's hockey team knows that to be a participant in the NCAA tournament, it will have to secure an automatic bid by way of winning the Western Collegiate Hockey Association Tournament.
Consider the first step in that difficult process complete. The Badgers went out west this past weekend and swept Denver in a first round, best-of-three series, advancing to the WCHA Final Five later this week.
""We are a good team,"" senior goaltender Brian Elliott said after UW completed a 2-1 victory Saturday, which, coupled with a 3-2 win Friday, advanced the team to St. Paul for a five-team showdown. ""We knew that Denver did not want to play us.""
The common thread in both of the series' games was the Badgers' ability to stake out early leads and maintain their poise, which was not always the case during the regular season.
Friday, UW scored two goals in the first period in a span of 3:11. Junior defenseman Joe Piskula scored his first goal of the season, and sophomore forward Ben Street tallied his ninth only minutes later on a rebound shot.
Denver stormed back to tie the game in the second period, and the game hung in the balance deep into the third frame. But senior Jake Dowell scored the game-winner—his team-leading 17th goal—on a rebound at 15:36 of the period, and Elliott fended off a last-minute attempt by the Pioneers.
Saturday, UW once again started strong, building a 2-0 lead before the end of the first period. Midway through the first, senior captain Andrew Joudrey gave UW a 1-0 lead on a rebound. Senior Andy Brandt added another score after a well-executed 2-on-1 sequence with senior Ross Carlson.
Those two goals turned out to be all the scoring UW would need. Denver got one back in the second period, but Elliott proved hard to beat, making 35 saves after his 23-save performance the previous night.
""We knew that we had a good shot at winning this,"" Elliott said.
The Badgers would be best-advised to take that same mindset into the next stage of the tournament, which begins Thursday with a play-in game and concludes Saturday night with the Broadmoor Trophy championship game.
And to hear DU head coach George Gwozdecky tell it after he watched his club—one of the better teams in the conference—get overwhelmed this past weekend, the Badgers have a chance to play in that game.
""This isn't luck,"" noted Gwozdecky, who played for UW during the 1977 title season. ""Wisconsin played a smart, smart series.""
—The Wisconsin State Journal
contributed to this report.
