The No. 20 Wisconsin men’s hockey team (6-5-5 WCHA, 9-8-5 overall) will look to bounce back from their first loss in twelve games and continue their run up the WCHA standings when they host Alaska-Anchorage (1-13-4, 3-14-5) at the Kohl Center this weekend.
The Badgers had won seven straight and were unbeaten in their last 11 games before last Saturday’s 2-1 loss to No. 6 Miami (Oh). Wisconsin has faced off against some stiff competition lately as both of their last two opponents were ranked in the top 15 of the country, and the team is looking to build off its recent success to
“Against Miami the tempo we played is how you want to play when you're playing high-end hockey and that’ll help us be successful when we play this weekend,” head coach Mike Eaves said. “It’s a precious commodity being able to play at that tempo so we've tried to really create that scene in practice by the type of drills we've been doing.”
“In the WCHA everybody is kind of a top team,” sophomore goaltender Joel Rumpel said. “You prepare for it like you would any game. It’s going to be a hard battle and they're going to compete.”
Despite their recent success, Wisconsin has struggled mightily on the power play, generating just six goals on 66 attempts on the season putting them at No. 57 overall in the country. In order to spark the team’s production, Eaves announced this week that he would be flip-flopping centers on the teams top two lines.
Senior Derek Lee will now pivot junior Tyler Barnes and freshman Nic Kerdiles, while junior Mark Zengerle will skate between sophomore Joseph LaBate and junior Michael Mersch.
“It’s just trying to get a chemistry, getting a little flow going,” senior defenseman John Ramage said about getting the power play unit going. “They’ll get going. They’ve been working hard out here all week and I look forward to see what they can do this weekend.”
The Badgers are just five points back of the leaders, Minnesota and St. Cloud State, in the WCHA and with another four points on the line this weekend, these games become as important as any down the stretch.
“Whenever you have the parity that we have in our league that becomes automatic,” Eaves said. “Here’s a clump of clay at the beginning of the season now it’s taking form in terms of standings and races and such and we have that now, it’s pretty easy to see what’s going on. Every weekend is like a playoff weekend.”
The two teams will drop the puck at 7 pm Friday and 8 pm Saturday from the Kohl Center.
