Coming off a bye weekend during which several top players went to Sweden and back, the Wisconsin Badger women's hockey team will have to come together and face off against one of the best teams in the nation.
The Wildcats of New Hampshire will host Wisconsin over the weekend in a pair of contests between two of the top-three teams. The Badgers and UNH rank No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in both wins and winning percentage over the last two seasons.
They've got a lot of skilled players. Their biggest challenge will be adapting to the bigger ice sheet,"" head coach Mark Johnson said. ""Getting on a sheet that's 100 feet by 200 feet, there's a lot of space out there, and it makes the game a little bit more challenging, so it will take us a period of time to adjust to playing on that bigger sheet. Obviously playing against a good New Hampshire team will be the second part of that.""
The Wildcats are coming off a 2-1 stretch that included wins over Connecticut and Boston College, both ranked teams. They were the No. 1 team in the country last week, but the loss dropped them behind the idle Badgers.
New Hampshire's excellent season has been powered by the play of freshman netminder Kayley Herman, who leads the Hockey East conference with a goals-allowed average of 1.12. On offense, the Wildcats have five players with more than 10 points, led by junior forward Sam Faber with 17.
For the majority of the Badgers, the bye was a chance to put in hard work in practice.
""We did a lot of individual skill work with the players that were still here,"" junior forward Angie Keseley said. ""We did a lot of skating, passing, shooting type drills, which are always important to work on no matter what skill level you are at, so I think that was good for us.""
Over last weekend, four current Badgers and three former ones competed in the Four Nations Cup in Leksand, Sweden. Wisconsin junior goaltender Jessie Vetter was in net for three of Team USA's four games, and junior center Erika Lawler scored two goals in one of the games against Canada.
""It was a lot of fun to play with my teammates and obviously see Molly [Engstrom] out in Sweden again and Kerry Weiland who played for Wisconsin,"" Vetter said. ""It was pretty cool. I think there were six of us, so Wisconsin was well represented.""
Johnson will not try to put too much stress on the players who made Team USA since they had to make the trip in a relatively short period of time.
""When you're going there you are excited,"" Johnson said. ""You are going to a tournament. You get to wear the jersey. You get to play in a big event. When you come back and you start doing your homework and start taking tests, mentally you just get tired.
""We'll be careful with them and try not to exert too much out of them in the next couple days,"" Johnson continued. ""They played four games in five days, they've traveled, so it's not a conditioning factor right now, it's more of a mental thing.
""[You] try to get them a massage, try to get them some good meals, try to get them some rest, try to get them caught up in school and when we drop the puck on Saturday hopefully they're ready to go.""
For the players however, just returning to Madison and preparing for a game goes a long way in getting them reacclimated.
""It was a seven-hour difference. I mean lots of traveling,"" senior forward Jinelle Zaugg said. ""But I think coming back to our team and knowing that we have a huge game this weekend is enough to get us back really fast.""
