Michigan Tech brought one of the nation's top ranked power play units into play this weekend at the Kohl Center. Coming into Friday's game, the Huskies had gone 10-for-27 in power plays on the year, good for a 37 percent success rate. The Badgers knew they would have to contain the potent Husky power play if they wanted to beat the Huskies.
Michigan Tech certainly did get its scoring opportunities with the man advantage this weekend, getting nine power play opportunities over the course of the two games. But the Wisconsin penalty kill held the Michigan Tech attack to just a single power play goal, which was a key factor in the Badgers coming away with the two-game sweep.
""Our goaltenders played very well. Sometimes the goalie has to be your best penalty killer, and they were for us,"" head coach Mike Eaves said. ""Our guys were able to block a lot of shots as well. We worked well in conjunction to get into the shooting lanes and block those shots, and that made us successful on the penalty kill.""
The penalty kill unit came up big in a different way during Saturday's game when senior forward and team captain Sean Dolan was able to score a short-handed goal that put the Badgers up 4-1.
That shorthanded tally was the final nail in Michigan Tech's coffin that night. It was evident after Dolan's goal that there wasn't much fight left in the Huskies.
""I think getting that fourth goal early in the third period, shorthanded, really hurt them. After that there was [a] difference- a lot of wind was out of the sail at that point,"" Eaves said.
The Badgers' penalty kill was huge during this weekend's sweep, but the fact that they had to come up big so many times brings up a different issue about this team: They take far too many penalties.
This weekend the Badgers took a total of 28 penalties, and while that is a ridiculous number, the real problem is the type of penalties that that the Badgers took. Wisconsin committed far too many penalties after the whistle, the kind that will drive a coach insane over the course of a season.
""Our team can't afford to be taking those penalties after the whistle,"" said senior forward Patrick Johnson, who was whistled for three penalties on Saturday. ""We were playing with fire, committing that many penalties, but luckily we got away with it; we had a good penalty kill this weekend.""
""I'm disappointed in some of our penalties after the whistle,"" Eaves said. ""We talk about going whistle to whistle and not getting involved in that stuff after, and we're still doing that. We just have to create the good habits that we want to have as a team.""
""We knew at the beginning of the season that we were going to be a young team. We knew there was going to be times when we were going to be inconsistent but we have to start making the decision about which side of the Richter scale we're going to fall. Are we going to be a good team, are we going to be an average team or a poor team, and we have to start doing things that indicate we're going to be a good team.""
