With home playoff games almost all but completely out of reach the Badgers face this weekend as their final time in front of the best fans in college hockey. They’ll be treated to an amazing story as Kirk Daubenspeck will be the honorary captain on Friday night, capping off a miraculous comeback from a horrific car accident exactly one year to the day of the accident. Saturday night will be a celebration for the lone Senior on the roster as Eric Springer will be honored on Senior Night. Add in 10th ranked Denver and you’ve got one heck of a way to close out the season at the Kohl Center.
Denver (17-9-3, 12-6-4 WCHA) comes in 3rd in the WCHA standings. They are in a massive fight at the top of the table with only 6 games left in the conference season, sitting one point behind Minnesota-Duluth and just two points behind league leading Minnesota. The Pioneers come in flying high having swept league leading Minnesota last week in dramatic fashion. Denver won 5-3 last Friday and it took a sudden death overtime 4-3 victory to seal the sweep.
On the other hand Wisconsin finds itself in the rarest of spots, the bottom of the conference. Wisconsin owns a 12-14-2 overall record and are just 7-13-2 in the WCHA. That’s enough to rank them 11th in the WCHA standings and are avoiding the bottom of the conference because of a very bad Alaska-Anchorage squad. The Badgers have just 16 points on the season and are coming off of a much needed bye week after suffering back to back sweeps from North Dakota and St. Cloud State.
The series between these two teams is one of the best rivalries out there, but in a much more competitive spirit rather than the hate saved for Minnesota and North Dakota. Overall the Badgers hold the advantage with a 73-56-11 record. But things in Madison haven’t exactly been easy against Denver as Wisconsin holds just a 32-29-6 advantage in games played at home.
Interestingly these two teams haven’t played each other since October 22-23, 2010. That’s nearly 16 months since the last clash. It was a close series but Denver got the win, 4-2, on Friday and the teams tied at 2-2 on Saturday. Current Badger forward Mark Zengerle has a goal and two assists in that series to lead Bucky in scoring.
After a week off it is clear from what Head Coach Mike Eaves has said that they are far from giving up, so expect a fight from this team. Especially since it’s a coaching matchup between Eaves and former Badgers teammate George Gwozdecky. Eaves’ record against the Pioneers has been less than stellar at 9-18-4 in his tenure at the helm of the Badgers program and it doesn’t help that both teams play a fairly similar style of hockey.
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“I think anytime you play a quality team that’s guided by a quality coach that it’s the same kind of mindset in terms of understanding who’s on the ice, what are they trying to do,” said Eaves about matching up with Gwodecky. “They’ll be well coached. They will know what we’re trying to do on our power play and vice versa, and it’s . . . execution. Part of when you play a good team like that is during the course of the weekend, can you make adaptations as you go along? The good teams can do that and figure out a way to, find a way to get a win.” |
One of the major storylines for Wisconsin is the health of forward Derek Lee who was supposed to go through a non-contact practice on Tuesday and could be available for this weekends series should he test out fine, so keep an eye out to see if he’s on the ice. Having him back would be great for the depth of the front lines for sure.
Of course the Badgers will lean on the two big scorers in Justin Schultz and Mark Zengerle, but lately sophomore Frankie Simonelli has been on a hot streak. The defenseman has notched points in two straight games, three of the last four, and four of the last six games. All of that has helped him to 4 goals and 15 points total on the season and his production will be needed against one of the WCHA’s best defensive units.
Denver comes with a scoring defense that ranks 4th overall in the conference, giving up just 2.73 goals per game. Combine that with the 3rd best offensive scoring unit in the WCHA (3.53 goals a game) and you have a very good recipe for success.
Individually the Badgers must key on a team that features three forwards and a defensman that all have double digit goal totals so far this season. Leading the team in goals, assists, and points is Junior forward Drew Shore with 17 goals, 24 assists, and 41 points on the season. Joining him on the 1st line is another deadly forward in Sophomore Jason Zucker. He has chipped in 15 goals and 19 assists for 34 points. Also watch out for defenseman Joey LaLeggia who is an assists machine out of the back, ranking 2nd on the team with 23 assists on the season.
Adding to the pressure on the Badgers are the special teams units of the Pioneers. Denver has the WCHA’s best power play unit at 24% and that’s not good news for a Badgers penalty kill that is the WCHA’s worst, stopping just 73.9% of all opponents power plays.
On the bright side of that terrible scenario is the fact that in the last game out the Badgers only gave up one penalty and it didn’t allow St. Cloud State to go on the power play at all because the penalty was offset by a matching minor on the Huskies.
For all of that breakdown it really comes down to one thing for the Badgers this weekend and that’s who scores first. The Badgers are just 4-12-0 when allowing the opponent to score first and an even more telling 1-7-1 if they are trailing after the first period.
Look for a possible split of the weekend in net for the Badgers as Landon Peterson earned his first start in eight games last weekend and played well. Joel Rumpel should see a start as well as he’s been the most consistent of the goalies this season and has shown up big against big time opponents.
Both games have a 7pm start time and will be available on FSN + on Friday and FSN on Saturday.
Prediction: Wisconsin gets some points this weekend. Playing on emotion can really jump start a team looking for a spark and the Badgers have that in abundance for them this weekend. I’m calling a win tonight for Dauber and a loss on Saturday as frankly Denver is too good to drop all the points this weekend. 4-3 Wisconsin on Friday, 4-1 Denver on Saturday.
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