The No. 15 Badgers (3-1) did not put on equal performances in this weekend's series against the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers (1-3), but managed to achieve wins on both nights.
After outshooting Huntsville by 30 and rolling to a 7-0 blowout on Friday night, UW played sluggishly for much of Sunday afternoon's contest—aside from junior winger Jordy Murray tallying the team's first hat trick since Blake Geoffrion's three goals against Michigan Tech on December 4, 2009—but fended off the Chargers en route to a 5-2 victory and series sweep.
Though the performance Sunday may not have been energetic, the performance of Wisconsin's power play unit through the first four games is another story. Against Huntsville, UW tallied four power play goals Friday night and added three more Sunday afternoon. The Badgers have now converted on 11 of their 29 power play opportunities this year, good for a robust 37.9 percent.
Despite losing the dynamic power play talent of Geoffrion, Brendan Smith and Michael Davies from a year ago, head coach Mike Eaves said he looked at the skill sets of Murray, sophomore defenseman Jake Gardiner and freshman winger Mark Zengerle and saw potential for continued success.
""There were pretty good indications that we were going to do good things [on the power play],"" Eaves said.
A key in that success so far has been the play of Zengerle, who has manned the lower right position on the Badgers' power play, held last year by Davies. Zengerle tallied his first career goal on UW's first power play Sunday afternoon, and also tallied four assists for the weekend—with three coming on the power play.
""He sees the ice so well and he can read those lanes so perfectly just like Mike did last year,"" sophomore defenseman Justin Schultze said of his freshman teammate. ""He's the perfect guy to be in that spot this year.""
Schultz turned in an excellent weekend himself, tallying two goals on Friday night and three assists Sunday.
With ten freshmen on the roster for the Badgers, the early season success and offensive output seems likely to serve UW well as it enters WCHA play. Three freshmen tallied their first goals this weekend, as wingers Tyler Barnes and Gavin Hartzog joined Zengerle in lighting the lamp.
""Confidence is something that you always would like any team to have, especially a young team, Eaves said. ""We're seeing and starting to believe the things that we can do and the things we've talked about.""
That confidence will likely be put to the test next weekend, as Wisconsin opens up its conference slate with a road series against the No. 6 Denver Pioneers (1-2-1). Denver, like Wisconsin, lost plenty of fire-power from last year's squad, but is already tested after tangling with defending national champion and top-ranked Boston College this weekend.
