Encouraged by its results at the end of the regular season the Wisconsin men’s hockey team (11-15-2 WCHA, 16-16-2 overall) heads into it’s road WCHA playoff series with No. 9 Denver (16-8-4, 21-11-4) with what head coach Mike Eaves calls “legitimate” confidence.
The Badgers closed out the regular season winning four out of its last five, three of those wins coming away from home. The team stumbled to a 1-8-1 record in its first 10 road games of the season, something Eaves said has Wisconsin feeling good about itself ahead of its series with the Pioneers.
“We feel [confident] from the inside out,” Eaves said. “Intrinsically we’ve been on the road here the last couple weekends, we’ve won three out of four…I think intrinsically we know what it takes [to win on the road].”
Denver is still fresh in the Badgers’ minds having played them at the Kohl Center just three weekends ago. Wisconsin defeated the Pioneers 5-2 Feb. 18 in the series finale in one of the Badgers’ most complete games of the season. Eaves said the memory of that game lends itself to his team’s confidence.
“I think that is what part of makes our feeling legitimate is having played well against them here and taking that and using that as we go forward,” Eaves said.
The Pioneers play on a small ice sheet (200-by-85 feet as opposed to the Kohl Center which is 200-by-97 feet), something Eaves said his team will prepare for, but isn’t unfamiliar with after having swept Bemdji State—who plays on a small sheet—on the road two weekends ago.
“We’ll be practicing on [a small sheet] this week. We played at Bemidji, which is a small sheet,” Eaves said. “All of those things add up into us having a basic feeling that we can get the job done should we continue to play like we are.”
Playing in the Mile-High City comes with its own unique challenges due to the elevation, something Eaves said he is accounting for and as a result will lighten the Badgers’ conditioning workload at practice this week.
“We’re going to bring down the volume a bit [in practice] because we’re at the end of year,” Eaves said. “We’re downsizing the volume of what we’re doing to keep ourselves sharp this time of the year.”
According to Eaves the feelings of confidence are spreading through the Wisconsin locker room, and that is especially noticeable among the team’s numerous young players, such as freshman forward Brendan Woods.
Woods was the latest center to fill in for concussed junior forward Derek Lee on the Badgers’ second forward line, doing so this past weekend against Minnesota, and Eaves said was impressed with the job the 6-foot-3-inch center did against the Gophers.
“Brendan is playing with great confidence right now and what’s really nice is to have a big guy in the middle,” Eaves said. “He seems to be doing a good job with his play without the puck which is always your question mark as a young center ice-man.”
But to Eaves, the most important growth he has seen in the Fairfax, Va. native—who has five goals and 10 points this season—has been in his on-ice demeanor.
“The has been great growth with Brendan in the fact that early in the year when things wouldn’t go well he had the habit of hanging his chin a little bit and feeling bad and that would take away from his next shift,” Eaves said. “He’s matured to the fact that he’s let that go now…so as that has improved I think his play has improved, his confident has improved and were seeing that right now.”
Eaves was also impressed with the play of freshman goaltender Joel Rumpel against Minnesota. The young net minder made 26 saves Friday and 31 Saturday against the Gophers, allowing only three goals.
“He played in areal tough environent and played well, and we’re going into another tough environment,” Eaves said, “that doesn’t seem to rattle him to much. He just kind of stands in there and does his thing so we hope that continues.”
