It's not often that a team in the midst of a disappointing start to their season meets another team that bears a similarly sized burden of unfulfilled expectations.
For the Wisconsin men's hockey team, however, this weekend will have just such a meeting.
That is because the Badgers (0-3-1 WCHA, 0-5-1 overall) will be visiting the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota, a team that was ranked in the top five early in the season. UND (1-1-0, 1-3-0) has struggled so far this season, but the Wisconsin players still regard them as the powerful team which has played in four straight Frozen Fours.
North Dakota's always a fun place to play but it's also a very tough place to play,"" junior forward Blake Geoffrion said. ""They have a great student section. It's pretty wild and crazy up there and their team feeds off that. We just need to go up there and play a good road game, try to make as few mistakes as possible ... and get pucks in deep and keep it simple at first.""
The Badgers have gotten offensive contributions from many of their blueliners this season but the defense overall has been an issue. Their scoring defense ranks last in the conference, giving up five goals per game.
The Wisconsin defenders attribute some of those scores of fortunate bounces but admit that they must stop that trend.
""We're just trying to stick together, keeping our heads up and just play as a two man [defensive] unit,"" sophomore defenseman Cody Goloubef said. ""The better we get as two, the better we're going to get as five and the better the results are going to be at the end of the game.""
The Badgers will not have to face former Sioux goaltender Jean-Philippe Lamoureux who finished in the top 10 ranking for the Hobey Baker award last season or top scorer from last year, T.J. Oshie. North Dakota does however return a number of talented players including senior forward Ryan Duncan, who had 40 points last season, and won the Hobey Baker as a sophomore.
""J.P Lameroux is a unbelievable goaltender but they've moved on from him,"" Geoffrion said. ""They still have a great team, still have Duncan, [Chris] VandeVelde, Joe Finley, [Chay] Genoway is still on defense '¦ It's a team game in hockey and I'm sure they're still going to bring their A-Game because they're a great team and it doesn't matter who they have in net.""
Despite one of the worst starts in team history, UW head coach Mike Eaves was proud of the way his team battled against Minnesota last weekend. He noted that near the end of last Saturday's game, ""[Wisconsin forward Matt] Thurber knocked [Minnisota defenseman Aaron] Ness right on his fanny. We did not go quietly in the night.""
The slow start has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of the players who believe that adhering to their system and philosophies will yield positive results in the near future.
""We lost five games - that ends here. We've got to go in there, hopefully try and win two, get as many points as we can,"" Goloubef said. ""We've been playing well, it's just we just haven't been getting the bounces I guess. This hard work's going to keep that going and it'll pay off eventually. It doesn't always pay off right away but we'll keep going.
