With the regular season coming to a close, the Wisconsin women's hockey team (20-2-2 WCHA, 26-2-2 overall) knows its weekend series against St. Cloud State 4-20-0, 5-23-2) will be the last time it has a guaranteed a road game. After this weekend, if the Badgers are to play away from home they will need to earn their tickets to Duluth, Minn., for two weekends: the WCHA Final Face-Off and the NCAA Frozen Four.
As the team gets set for the postseason, players and coaches see this road test-in the form of games against the Huskies Friday and Saturday-as a chance to make final tune-ups for the biggest games of the season against an easier opponent.
St. Cloud has struggled this season, and with just 12 conference points to show for the year the Huskies are trying to avoid last place. Meanwhile, the Badgers could clinch a regular-season WCHA championship with wins this weekend.
According to head coach Mark Johnson, the habits he hopes his players have learned over the past few months will carry them through the end of the regular season and playoffs.
"The big thing is: Don't get complacent, don't get ahead of yourself," Johnson said of his team's mentality. "Continue what we've done."
With postseason play in mind, along with the knowledge that the team did not look its best through January, Johnson must have been glad to see Wisconsin play a complete and consistent game Feb. 5, as the Badgers defeated Minnesota State 6-0. Senior forward and team captain Hilary Knight said Sunday it was the first time she had seen the team play a "three-period game" in weeks.
According to junior forward Brianna Decker, the team will be looking to find that level of play again this weekend.
"Consistency is always something you can improve on-not just period by period but shift by shift," Decker said.
If there is anything Wisconsin has learned it can count on from Decker it is consistency, as the talented center on the team's top line has created scoring opportunities for herself and her linemates: senior forwards Brooke Ammerman and Carolyne Prevost. Decker is often spoken of as a hard-working player, a label that Johnson said is rooted in her competitiveness, and which is evident whenever she is on the ice.
"They're three great players playing together," Knight said of Decker, Ammerman and Prevost, "but Decker has this ability to find other people all over the ice, and see the ice extremmely well."
"If you're playing with someone like [Decker] it's a lot easier for you to do your own job," Knight added.
But while the production from Wisconsin's forwards has been undeniable-Decker has contributed 64 points this season, Ammerman 58 and Prevost an injury-stunted 42-the Badgers are missing a scoring touch on the blue line.
Junior forward Stefanie McKeough has missed the past four games with an upper-body injury, and Johnson said her status is day-to-day. But Knight said that, while the team has missed McKeough on the ice, younger Wisconsin defensemen like sophomore Natalie Berg have helped make sure the loss is not too great.
"She's our [defensive] anchor, and she brings a lot of wisdom back at the end of the bench, so missing Steph [McKeough] is a huge loss to us," Knight said. "It's unfortunate that sometimes our anchor isn't there, but we have other girls that are stepping up and making big plays."
