Coming into the weekend the Wisconsin men’s hockey team (8-14-2 WCHA, 13-15-2 overall) found itself sitting in 11th place in the WCHA, riding a four game losing streak and welcoming Denver—the No. 10 team in the country—to the Kohl Center.
With all of that it might have been easy for the Badgers to roll over for the Pioneers (13-7-4, 18-10-4) but Wisconsin showed it still has some fight left in it as the season winds down, rebounding from a frustrating 3-0 loss Friday to earn a split with a dominating 5-2 triumph Saturday to close out its home schedule.
Coming into this weekend the Badgers had been struggling offensively—scoring only two goals in their last series against St. Cloud State—and despite a week off that trend continued Friday night against Denver.
Through two periods of play quality scoring opportunities for the Wisconsin offense were non-existent as the Pioneers’ defense and sophomore goaltender Sam Brittain shut down the Badgers. But, despite Brittain’s strong play the Badgers found themselves down only one goal heading into the third period.
As the final period began the Wisconsin offense came alive, creating its best opportunities of the night and putting consistent pressure on the Denver goal. But the Badgers failed to convert on any of those opportunities. Sophomore forwards Michael Mersch, Mark Zengerle and Ryan Little all had golden opportunities to score, but couldn’t capitalize, which would haunt the Badgers.
The Pioneers got a goal from sophomore forward Jason Zucker with 12:14 left in the game, which left Wisconsin visibly deflated as frustration set in. Denver added an empty net goal to close out the Badgers’ 3-0 defeat.
“We’ve had chances, they just haven’t gone in,” said Zengerle of the team’s recent struggles on offense. “Coach [Eaves] was just saying when things are good you’re kind of flying with it and when things aren’t so hot it’s tough to get out of.”
Perhaps no player was as emblematic of the team as a whole this weekend than Zengerle, who was visibly frustrated after his effort on Friday. But, some words of wisdom from his head coach seemed to pay dividends.
“He was on the floor [stretching] and I grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye and said ‘you are a good player. You need to remember that and just relax and play,” Mike Eaves said.
Zengerle apparently took those words to heart and he and the Badger offense brought their ‘A’ games Saturday night and produced arguably the team’s best game of the season.
They say when you’re in a slump all you need is one goal to snap out of it, and that certainly rang true for Wisconsin. After Zengerle scored to tie the game at one—a goal that included an exuberant bow and arrow style celebration—you could see the immense weight come off the Badgers’ shoulders. After that the dams broke and Wisconsin poured in four of the next five goals scored in the game to build a 5-2 lead and snap the team’s five-game losing streak.
“Once we got one the floodgates opened we played really well,” Zengerle said.
It’s amazing what a few goals can do. The difference between the Wisconsin team that showed up to play Friday night and that that a sold out crowd of 15,325 saw in Saturday’s game was staggering. They were two different teams. After breaking through offensively the Badgers played with a noticeable increase in confidence and overpowered one of the best teams in the nation.
“We were scoring goals tonight, which I think hasn’t happened,” junior defenseman Justin Schultz—who netted his 13th goal of the season in the win—said. “We had a lot of shots on goal, a lot of chances and played well defensively. So I’d say that was one of the best games we’ve played this year.”
With the win Wisconsin moved into a tie with Minnesota State for 10th place in the WCHA with two weekends left in the regular season.
