Wisconsin women's hockey head coach Mark Johnson’s career has included plenty of big wins.
During his playing career, he helped the Wisconsin men's hockey team capture the 1977 National Championship, leading the team in scoring as a freshman that season.
Three years later, he powered the U.S. national team, the famous 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ squad, to a gold medal with a team-leading 11 points in seven games and scored a pair of goals in a semifinal matchup in the medal round against the Soviet Union, one of the sport's most iconic games.
The winning continued when he took over the Wisconsin women's head coaching job in 2002. The Badgers captured four national titles in Johnson’s first nine years.
On Sunday he secured another win that — although not the most famous or most memorable — marks another milestone moment in his illustrious career.
The No. 2-ranked Badgers (2-0-0 WCHA, 6-0-0 overall) took down No. 4 Minnesota-Duluth (0-3-1, 2-3-1) 3-1 to complete the weekend sweep. The win was Johnson’s 465th, making him the all-time winningest coach in NCAA women’s hockey history.
Instead of acknowledging the personal achievement, the Madison native focused on his team’s energetic performance.
“Overall, six good periods [this weekend],” Johnson said. “I thought that everybody made a contribution and the second half of this game it certainly helped having the depth that we do.”
The Badgers started the game slowly, as a miscue put them in an early deficit, which has happened on multiple occasions through the season's first few weeks.
A miscommunication between junior goaltender Kristin Campbell and senior defender Maddie Rolfes resulted in UMD's opening goal. Campbell went to play a puck behind her own net and initially stumbled before leaving the puck for Rolfes to scoop up and start the rush.
Only it wasn’t Rolfes, but Duluth forward Ashton Bell who got to the puck first. Campbell turned around and saw her mistake but couldn’t get back to the goal in time to stop Bell, who deposited the puck into the net on a wraparound.
Down a goal just 56 seconds into the game, Wisconsin battled back with relentless pressure on Duluth goaltender Maddie Rooney, a 2018 Olympian for the U.S.
“We knew that with this goalie, we had to get a lot of shots on her,” UW junior forward Abby Roque said. “It wasn’t enough to just get shots, we had to get rebounds, we needed to get people in front.”
Sophomore defenseman Natalie Buchbinder was the first to break through for Wisconsin with a hard wrister from between the faceoff circles that beat Rooney high glove side with just under 13 minutes left in the first.
Rooney continued to be a challenge for the Wisconsin skaters, making several point-blank stops on breakaways and rushes to keep the Bulldogs in the game.
It took another rocket of a shot, this time from junior forward Alexis Mauermann, to finally give the Badgers the lead midway through the second frame. Senior forward Annie Pankowski won an offensive zone faceoff straight back, and Mauermann stepped up confidently and one-timed the puck through Rooney’s closing pads.
Sophomore forward Brette Pettet gave UW some insurance on the second shift of the third period when she followed up a point-blank Buchbinder try and poked it past Rooney.
Although most of the talk after the game was about Johnson’s record-breaking 465th win, the Badgers were focused on a different number of victories: two.
“It’s nice to get two wins against a team that we’ll definitely battle with down the line,” Roque said. “Especially during playoff time they could be a potential team we’ll have to face again, so it’s good to get two wins.”
