Wisconsin’s opening-night shutout win over then No. 10 Boston College caught the attention of the college hockey community and signalled that the Badgers had the talent to exceed expectations in 2018-’19. But given the program’s recent history, what they did the next night seemed even more significant.
The Badgers won their second game against the Eagles, breaking a streak of 20 series without a sweep over more than a season of play and showing signs that they might have moved beyond the inconsistency that has plagued head coach Tony Granato’s tenure.
Since that weekend, Wisconsin has reverted to its earlier ways, dropping three straight series openers by a combined score of 15-4. After a promising start, the No. 20 Badgers (0-0-0 Big Ten, 4-4-0 overall) now enter conference play against No. 16 Minnesota with questions about their ability to play a full 120 minutes.
“It’s difficult [to be consistent for 120 minutes]. We need to grow as a team, we’re young but that’s not an excuse,” senior captain Peter Tischke said. “I’ve been here four years and it’s been almost the same thing each year that we’re up and down so we just need to find a consistency and a hard effort every day.”
While defensive and goaltending lapses were the main culprit for Wisconsin’s up-and-down play last season, this year even the offense has performed like two different units on Fridays and Saturdays. The Badgers have averaged 5.5 goals and 35 shots per game in their series-finishing games, but just 1.75 and 26 in openers.
When the offense has been running on all cylinders it’s produced spectacularly, with three games of at least six goals already. But the flip side is that the Badgers have been unable to generate much pressure when things don’t do their way early.”
“You can kind of see from the drop of the puck in the first period the kind of game we’re going to have,” sophomore forward Sean Dhooghe said. “The way we’re skating, forechecking, backchecking… In the first five minutes you can see if we’re going to be able to pump some goals.”
Asked about the team’s struggles on Friday nights, Granato identified tentativeness and a lack of aggression as the main reasons why Wisconsin hasn’t performed well. According to the coach, the Badgers have let their opponents dictate play to start the series, and it’s been reflected in the low shot totals.
“I thought we tip-toed into it kind of waiting to see how the game was going to be played,” Granato said of the team’s opening loss to North Dakota. “That’s something that we have to learn from.”
The Badgers are one of the youngest teams in the country with 16 rostered underclassmen. Despite their inconsistency, they’ve shown that they have the talent to compete with elite teams.
Wisconsin has an opportunity to improve on its consistency as it enters Big Ten play, where more consistent refereeing and better familiarity with its opponents could be beneficial. With one of the toughest schedules in the country, the Badgers will need to get as many points as possible from their winnable series, starting this weekend at home against the Gophers.
“We need to prepare better in our practices, compete a little bit harder,” Tischke said. “I think this week we’ve started doing that well. We did a battle day yesterday and everybody was getting after it, so I’m excited to see what we can do with it this weekend.”
