On the night when the university will be honoring the 25th year anniversary of the 1982-83 team's national championship, this year's young Badger team will take the ice for their first home game of the year. Sixteen of the 28 roster spots are sophomores or freshmen, with six of those being NHL picks. They are very talented but still need to gain some experience to survive the long season.
Last year coach Mike Eaves brought in nine freshmen, and by the end of the year, the team was on a hot streak, just missing out on the Frozen Four with a loss to North Dakota 2-3.
The freshman class this year totals seven and saying they are talented may be an understatement. Three of the freshman Badgers, Jake Gardiner, Chris Hickey and Derek Stepan, were drafted by NHL teams. Gardiner and Stepan were taken in the 2008 draft, and Hickey was taken in 2006.
Gardiner was drafted the highest at 17th overall by the Anaheim Ducks, and as a defenseman, already has five points this year, all assists. The other four freshmen, Eric Springer, Matt Thurber, Jordy Murray and Ryan Little, have accumulated seven points combined.
Most of the freshmen have seen ice time in the first four games this year and with the majority of the team being underclassmen, the early struggles were expected. The defense has given up the most goals in a four-game span since 1997, and it is the first time since the 1932-33 season that Wisconsin has started 0-4. Freshman defensemen Eric Springer still has high goals.
Just [working on] becoming more solid as a unit,"" Springer said. ""As an entire unit we feel like we can be one of the best in the country. So there's kind of some pressure on us to do well but we'll come together.""
Breaking into WCHA play last weekend at Denver was a new experience for the young Badgers. Wisconsin stormed out to a 4-1 lead but was unable to maintain it as the defense gave up four goals in the third period. In game two, the Badgers gave up seven goals, the most they have surrendered since the 2005-06 season against Minnesota State. Freshmen defensemen Jake Gardiner was surprised how fast the players in the WCHA were.
""[The] WCHA is pretty sweet; everyone is pretty good. Playing Denver, No. 4 in the country, was definitely an eye-opener. There's some fast guys on their team that are pretty good, so I'm just looking forward to the rest of the season,"" Gardiner said.
The difference between last year and this year for the new freshmen is the rough early schedule. The Badgers started off the 2007-08 season at the Lefty McFadden Invite where they went 1-1. Then they came back to the Kohl Center and hammered Robert Morris twice to start out the WCHA season 3-1. Now, coming into the WCHA season, the team is under a significant amount of pressure to pull out their first win. Springer thinks the tough competition helped the Badgers determine where they are as a team.
""Yeah, it's a tough test to start out the year, we kind of gauged where we're at. Our overall results didn't do that well but at times we saw that we could play with BC and we were right there with them to the end,"" he said.
""There were stretches against Denver where we were right there, we were playing well and outplaying them. We're kind of seeing that if we learn how to put it all together we certainly have the talent to be right up there with the elite teams, so it's good for us.""
