Another series, another top-10 opponent. That's just the road the Badgers must travel through the WCHA.
No. 13 Wisconsin will take the ice against the No. 8 Denver Pioneers this weekend in hopes of moving back into first place in the WCHA. The Badgers now sit one point behind Denver and North Dakota in the conference standings after their second bye in three weeks.
Much like the Badgers' last opponent, Minnesota, the Pioneers are a deep and talented squad.
\They're a good shaking team, a team that has transition, they play hard, they're well-coached and for some reason they seem to have success in the Kohl Center, so we're concerned about all those things,"" Wisconsin head coach Mike Eaves said.
Denver is coached by George Gwozdecky, who played on Wisconsin's 1977 title team, and has won seven of its last nine games at the Kohl Center. However, they have been struggling lately, coming into Madison on a 2-3-2 streak.
The Badgers will, however, be welcoming back one familiar face, as sophomore defenseman Brendan Smith is set to play in his first game since Jan. 9. Smith will pair primarily with the team's leading scorer, junior defenseman Jamie McBain.
Eaves said that Smith's minutes will likely be monitored, but that he will be thrown back onto the top power-play defense pairing. Thirteen of Smith's 21 points came on the power play, where his powerful slap shot helped him score seven goals.
Although Wisconsin's already-dangerous power play will be bolstered by Smith, Denver sports a powerful offense which averages a league-high 3.57 goals per game.
That scoring success comes despite that absence of sophomore forward Tyler Bozak, who centered the top Pioneer line when the teams met earlier in the season. Bozak accrued 14 assists and seven goals in 18 games before getting injured.
""It's going to be different because now they've got [Anthony] Maiani and Joe Colborne scoring,"" sophomore defenseman Cody Goloubef said. ""One guy out of the lineup doesn't mean much for us. I mean, they're all scoring. They've got a group of guys who can put the puck in the net, so it's nice, but nothing too serious.""
Eaves also said that Bozak was a ""special talent"" on the power play, which now is converting 15 percent of its chances, nearly the worst in the conference.
When these teams first met in mid-October when the Badgers were coming off two losses to a pair of top East Coast teams in New Hampshire and Boston College. Denver took both games, breaking past Wisconsin after the first period, winning 6-5 in the first game and battering reserve goaltender Scott Gudmandson in a 7-4 contest.
The first game was a especially difficult for senior Wisconsin goaltender Shane Connelly, who played an excellent first period but gave up a goal to Bozak with one minute left, and held a 4-2 lead after the second.
Connelly then tired in the third, letting four of the last six shots he saw slip past.
""It was early in the season and I think fatigue set in and I kind of mentally wandered a little bit,"" Connelly said. ""I think the team [did] the same thing. We were so excited about ... beating Denver, being out-shot incredibly, and we kind of just, we backed down. We were intimidated from them coming at us so much.""
The Badger players, however, emphasized that back then the team was not playing complete games and said the team had grown in that area during the season.
The puck drops at 7 p.m. both Friday and Saturday nights. The first game will be broadcast on MyMadisonTV Friday and Fox Sports Net Saturday.
