Following Sunday's 5-0 victory over Penn State things seemed to be going to plan for Wisconsin hockey, they would take care of business and head into the final four games of WCHA play with a real chance to improve their status with the NCAA selection committee and to also finish in the top 4 of the league.
Well, after a 3-2 overtime loss to Penn State at home on Monday in front of the Badgers can kiss just about any hopes of an NCAA tournament birth goodbye. Even head coach Mike Eaves admitted as much.
“I think what it does is it just squeezes the importance of our last four games," said Eaves following the game. "We have to primarily win out, so that’s our task at hand.”
Unless Wisconsin makes a run to the Broadmoor Trophy (the WCHA postseason championship) there is simply no way the Badgers have the resume available to make the NCAA tournament.
Currently UW sits tied for 28th in the PairWise Rankings, which mimics the NCAA tournament selection process. In order to make the tournament they would have to jump 12 places in just four games, plus the WCHA tournament – there simply isn't enough time or games left for Wisconsin to make up that kind of ground.
To say losing to Penn State on Monday night was a disappointment is an understatement and if that's the case for us the fan, it has to be the case for the players and coaches as well.
"We’re going to look back at this game and say it was a game of missed opportunities," said Eaves. "We’re going to probably look at the film and say we out-chanced them two-to-one and we didn’t score enough to put it out of the game in regulation.”
However, some aren't seeing this as a complete case of doom and gloom and that's because the silver lining is that this was a non-conference series.
“I wouldn’t say momentum has been lost, but yeah it’s devastating," said forward Mark Zengerle. "Especially after what happened around college hockey after last night. Like Jake (McCabe) said, we can’t do anything about it now. We still control our fate as far as getting home ice and going from there.”
Give credit where credit is due, Penn State could've rolled over and played dead after the 5-0 thumping they took on Sunday night and going down 2-0 to start Monday's contest, but they came out ready to play and didn't back down to Wisconsin in the 3rd period, ripping off three unanswered goals and stunning the Kohl Center crowd.
The loss moved UW to just 2-2-7 in the 11 overtime games they've played this season and moved their record at the Kohl Center to a poor 7-7-3.
If the Badgers look back on 2012-13 those are the two things they can directly point to as reasons they will stay home come NCAA tournament time for the 3rd straight season.
Adding injury to insult was the fact that Derek Lee went off the ice with an injury in the 1st period on Monday. He's simply too important to what little offense the Badgers put up for him to miss any significant time really. The extent of his injury wasn't known after the game.
"“No. I haven’t talked to the doctor yet," said Eaves. "I’ll get in there, and I think they’ll probably have to see how it is tomorrow and then let us know.”
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