Badgers Prefer Unbeaten Streak to Winless Start
Nov. 19, 2008
By John Gilbert
Wisconsin has tasted both extremes, and the Badgers apparently have decided they’d rather win than lose. That isn’t as simplistic as it sounds. When the Badgers saw a 3-2 third-period lead dissolve into a 3-3 tie at Minnesota Duluth last Friday (Nov. 14), coach Mike Eaves and his troops sounded disappointed, as though they’d let one get away.
“Well,” someone suggested to Eaves, “you can’t win them all.”
Eaves paused, then cracked a wide grin. “No, you can’t win them all,” he said, after each team had scrapped and battled for the upper hand. “We even had 28 shots apiece, so I guess that’s as even as you can get.”
The tie was a measuring point for Wisconsin, which came back to whip the Bulldogs 4-1 in the Saturday rematch to reach the WCHA’s version of sea-level at 4-4-2. Generally when a team plays .500, it spends a lot of weekends trading the joy of victory for the agony of defeat. The Badgers are following a different path.
That agony of defeat was excruciating at times, when the Badgers started off on the program’s historically bleakest opening – going 0-6-1, and 0-4-1 in the WCHA. As Eaves pointed out, however, the early season included games against Boston College and New Hampshire, both Hockey East powers, then a trip to Denver that expanded the start to 0-4, before a tie and loss to arch-rival Minnesota at Kohl Center. A 3-2 loss at North Dakota ended that futility.
They haven’t lost since then, and after beating North Dakota and sweeping Michigan Tech, the three points at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center mean the Badgers are unbeaten in their last five games, going 4-0-1 in those league contests.
“They call it parity,” said Eaves, “and it could be put up in bold and underlined this year.”
If you ask around the WCHA, nobody enjoys playing the Badgers, since Eaves installed an NHL-like version of tough, suffocating defense. A year ago, that was coupled with an offense that was unable to produce, which led to a sub-par 11-12-5 for sixth place in the WCHA. This year, the Badgers started off yielding 33 goals during that 0-6-1 start – nearly five goals per game – while only scoring 20 – under three goals per game.
Since then, the offense has come alive, and the defense has regained its touch. During the 4-0-1 surge, the Badgers scored 21 goals – over four per game – and yielded only eight – less than two per game. The reason for the increased offense? The defense. Coming into the UMD series, Jamie McBain, Brendan Smith and Ryan McDonagh were 1-2-3 atop the Badger scoring chart, and McBain’s 3-9—12 led the whole WCHA.
But the assist-happy defensive corps is finding willing co-conspirators up front. All seven goals at Duluth were scored by forwards, with Blake Geoffrion scoring two in the third period after Patrick Johnson’s
first-period goal opened the 3-3 tie, and the next night, Tom Gorowsky, Andy Bohmbach, and Podge Turnbull scored after freshman Chris Hickey opened with his first point as a Badger.
Goaltender Shane Connelly solidified his play, after sophomore Scott Gudmandson replaced him and recorded Wisconsin’s first shutout in a year by beating Michigan Tech 6-0. At Duluth, Connelly stopped 26 shots the first game and 28 the second.
Connelly’s only regret for the weekend was the final goal in the first game, which came after Geoffrion’s two third-period goals had vaulted the Badgers into a 3-2 lead. Justin Fontaine had tied it with his sixth
goal of the season, drilling a rebound with 4:46 remaining.
Fontaine, rushing in on the left, fought off a check and made a neat, one-handed back-pass to Andrew Carroll, who cut to the slot and fired a shot.
“If it had been on my stick, or up higher where I could catch it, there wouldn’t have been a rebound,” said Connelly. “It’s frustrating when the shot is right there, just below my knee. You know there’s going to be a rebound, and you just hope it bounces your way. I was thinking it might go somewhere else, but it went right on his (Fontaine’s) stick.”
The suffocating defensive style of the Badgers is perfectly suited to the DECC’s smaller ice surface, which is 190 feet long instead of the regulation 200. And the 85-foot width is North American regulation, but 15 feet narrower than the Olympic-size sheets at Kohl, and other WCHA sites. The result is a lot less ice, which means there is no room to make many plays if Wisconsin is involved. But it took some adjustment.
“The rink, the ice, the pucks – you never get a clean shot it seems,” said Connelly.
Defenseman Ryan McDonagh said, “I thought we played pretty good in the first and third periods, but I don’t know where we went in the second. Playing here is definitely different than playing at home. The boards here are real lilvely, too.”
Eaves said he thought his team had better flow in the third period than in the second, when UMD responded to a 1-0 deficit for goals by freshman Mike Connolly and Ryan Oberg, on a two-man power-play.
“In this building, you never feel that you have control, because of the dimensions,” said Eaves. “But in the second period, we didn’t execute, whether it was getting the puck out hard, or getting it in hard. Our
offense seems to go up and down, although Blake (Geoffrion) is riding a real good wave right now. He’s got a great shot, and he’s around the net for loose pucks.”
UMD coach Scott Sandelin said he thought neither team played well in the first period of the Friday game. “We played better in the second, but they came out hard in the third,” he said. “If we can play like we did in the second period, we’ll be fine...”
However, the Bulldogs couldn’t. Because of the Badgers. Obviously, the Badgers played closer to their favored controlling style in the second game, and it couldn’t come at a better time. Around the rest of the league, favorites like Colorado College, Denver, and North Dakota were being upset by Minnesota State, Mankato, St. Cloud State, and Alaska Anchorage, and Michigan Tech surprised Minnesota with a 2-2 tie. Denver, in fact, lost both games at St. Cloud State, while CC and North Dakota bounced back for splits. Minnesota stung Tech in the rematch, and climbed to the No. 1 rank in the nation.
The Badgers stay on the road for a trip to St. Cloud this week, and, amid an extensive tournament break, their following four WCHA games are all against Alaska Anchorage, in Madison Dec. 5-6, and at Anchorage Jan. 9-10. After that, eight of Wisconsin’s final 12 WCHA games are at the Kohl Center.
The Badgers are definitely on the rise. They’ve tried it both ways, and, like the old saying goes, they seem to have decided that it’s better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick.
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