After earning a well deserved split with then-#10 ranked Denver last weekend the Badgers take to the road for a series with a foe that isn’t all that familiar to them in Bemidji State as Wisconsin (13-15-2, 8-14-2 WCHA 18pts.) takes on the Beavers (15-14-3, 9-12-3 WCHA 21pts). It’s a weekend in which the Badgers have a chance to climb out of the very bottom of the league and avoid playing one of the top three teams in 1st round of the playoffs.
Wisconsin is facing the first in a three week road trip and will need to vastly improve on it’s 1-8-1 road record if it wants to avoid nearing the bottom of the WCHA standings.
This is the Badgers first ever trip to Bemidji and the Sanford Center and overall these two teams have only met 3 times in the history with Wisconsin holding a 3-0-0 record and 2-0-0 in WCHA play. The last time these two teams met was at the Kohl Center in December of 2010 with the Badgers earning the sweep, 3-2 and 2-0.
Despite the lack of a deep rivalry between these two teams this series is important to both team in terms of playoff positioning and even more important to a Madison native that sees a lot of playing time for the Beavers.
Jordan George, one of two Madison, WI natives on the Bemidji State roster, also happens to be the leading scorer for the Beavers. He has a team best 15 goals and is tied for second most in assists with 11, giving him the lead in points at 26 for the season so far. The junior forward is only bested in the assists category by senior defenseman Brad Hunt who has 17 assists which ranks in the Top 25 of the WCHA this season.
Bemidji State has senior Dan Bakala in net for the majority of games this year, playing in 22 games and sporting a 9-9-2 record between the pipes. He has a 2.53 goals against average which ranks 6th in the WCHA, just ahead of Joel Rumpel. His save percentage of .918 is very good, ranking 4th in conference.
The biggest question for Wisconsin fans is if Joel Rumpel will be available between the pipes for the Badgers after suffering a cut to his thigh in last Friday’s game that kept him out of Saturday night’s win over Denver. As of this writing he hasn’t been ruled of the series as of yet.
What is most probable is that Landon Peterson will see the action on Friday night to give Rumpel another night and reward Peterson for his efforts against Denver.
One of the biggest positives of last Saturday besides winning over a Top 10 team was seeing the return to scoring of both Mark Zengerle and Justin Schultz. Zengerle comes in with 11 goals and 30 assists on the year, the latter ranks him 2nd in the WCHA despite the massive scoring drought he went through.
Schultz comes in after his own goal and an assist performance last Saturday against Denver and now has a team leading 13 goals along with 27 assists of his own.
Wisconsin has also seen a jump in performance from sophomore forward Keegan Meuer and if Zengerle, Schultz, and Meuer are scoring that should bode well towards a Badgers victory.
These two teams are pretty evenly matched in terms of the team offense vs. defense numbers, with the Badger offense ranking 9th in the WCHA vs. the Beavers 5th ranked defense. On the other hand the Beavers have the 11th ranked offense (2.69gpg) vs. the Badgers 9th ranked defense (2.97).
Without a ton of history between these teams and this being a completely foriegn building for the Badgers it could be a dangerous recipe for an inconsistent at best team. Look for a split this weekend as the Badgers get just their 2nd road victory of the season ahead of the season ending border battle with Minnesota next weekend.
The games are only available online for your viewing pleasure and Friday night’s game is a 7:30pm Central start with Saturday back to a normal 7pm start.
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