When it comes to rankings and talent, the Wisconsin men's hockey team is the odds-on favorite this weekend against Minnesota-Duluth. But that's on paper.
The Badgers (2-1-1, 1-1-0 WCHA) have won only one of the last four meetings between the two teams, going 1-2-1 despite being ranked considerably higher in all four of the meetings.
""They were a young team last year, and have gotten a little bit older,"" senior goalie Brian Elliot said. ""They are a fast team and can put some pucks in the net. We will have to be good defensively and hope to finish offensively.""
Amidst a late season slump last year, the Badgers came into Duluth and appeared to turn things around with a 7-3 victory on Friday night, only to fall 4-1 to the Bulldogs the following night.
The year before, after sweeping UMD in December, the Badgers lost to and tied the Bulldogs in a series in early March.
""[UMD] is always going to give you a 100 percent effort ... we need to make sure that we are just as prepared as we were last Saturday night for this weekend coming up,"" senior forward Andrew Joudrey said.
Wisconsin is coming off a hard fought 1-0 victory over North Dakota last Saturday and can ride some momentum from that, but UMD (1-0-1, 0-0-0 WCHA) has some momentum of its own. After skating to a 3-3 tie with UMass-Lowell on Friday, the Bulldogs came back to pummel Lowell 7-3 on Saturday.
Both teams are young. The Bulldogs have only three seniors, but also only three freshmen who have seen playing time. The Badgers, on the other hand, have seven seniors, but seven freshmen with game experience.
Much of the playing time seen by Badger freshmen came last weekend after injuries knocked three premier Badger players out of the lineup.
Forwards Jack Skille (So.) and Ross Carlson (Sr.) and junior defenseman Kyle Klubertanz all left Friday's game with injuries and will probably not play this weekend.
""This whole year is going to be by committee with all that we do, and it won't be just one or two guys,"" Joudrey said. ""We miss two of our top guys; we need the next guys to step in line. We all need to step up and push ahead and just chip in and hopefully that will accumulate into some goals.""
The experience of the Badger seniors will be challenged by UMD's ability to exploit the inexperienced Wisconsin freshmen.
North Dakota accomplished that feat last Friday in overtime when it converted a turnover by Wisconsin freshman defenseman Jamie McBain in the defensive zone into a game-winning goal.
Faceoff is set for 7:07 p.m. at the Kohl Center tonight and Saturday.
