Top-ranked Wisconsin continued its quest for a fifth national title, winning the WCHA Final Face-Off last weekend for the third-straight year. The Badgers (22-2-4 WCHA, 31-2-4 overall) secured the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament and will host No. 8 Robert Morris (24-4-6 overall) in the quarterfinals.
“It was a fun afternoon, it was a great tournament and we got challenged in both games, both our opponents’ goaltenders played extremely well, so the challenge was there and we found two different ways to win hockey games and bring another championship back to Madison,” head coach Mark Johnson said. “Look forward to the start of the tournament, everybody is back at the starting gate. You’ve got eight teams at the starting gate and we’ll know in a couple of weeks who’s going to hoist the national championship trophy.”
While Robert Morris (24-4-6) will provide a challenge, Johnson believes that his team’s preparation will be a big difference-maker.
“They’re having a great year … probably the most important thing is what we’re capable of doing, playing at our level and playing our ‘A’ game and if we do that, that should be confidence enough that it’ll give us the best chance to win,” Johnson said. “So we’ll look at what they look like and some of the tendencies that they do, but more importantly is our preparation this week and getting ourselves ready to come out.”
As the Badgers begin another NCAA run, it comes with the cloud of having come up just short over the past few seasons in securing that elusive national championship.
UW senior captain Sydney McKibbon believes the team learned a tough lesson last year in the NCAA semifinal overtime loss to eventual-champion Minnesota.
“You gotta play every shift like it’s your last and I think we learned that last year—that you can get so close but until you’re holding the trophy, it doesn’t really mean that much,” McKibbon said.
Junior forward Annie Pankowski doesn’t see the same team as those that have come up short.
“Certainly, those games are games you don’t forget,” Pankowski said. “Those semifinal losses, they still hurt and are still there and I think that it’s an energy well for us to tap into as we move into the next game to kinda draw from.”
For the Badger’s senior class, a national championship is the one thing missing from their legacy.
“Obviously, we’ve checked off a lot of boxes, but ultimately, we haven’t gotten that national championship trophy and that’s what we came here to get, so we’re definitely trying to get that in the next two weeks,” McKibbon said.
The puck drops at LaBahn Arena Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m., with the winner advancing to the Frozen Four in St. Charles, Mo.
