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UW hockey: Are Badgers on cusp of greater things?

Todd D. Milewski  —  4/02/2008 6:21 am

It seemed like more of a hope than an affirmation all along, but it turned out to be not that far off.

University of Wisconsin men's hockey players and coaches said throughout the season that they thought they could have a pretty good team if everything came together.

For five periods in the NCAA Midwest Regional last weekend, things were as close to together as they had been at any other time.

The Badgers were motivated. They played with purpose. Their passes were crisp. Their penalty kill was effective, and an oft-maligned power play was creating bunches of high-quality chances.

This was the pretty good team that the Badgers hoped they could be. The question is, where was it all along?

Was it a matter of motivation? It may not be a coincidence that Wisconsin played some of their best games this season when it had its dander raised.

Think of when UW had a tying goal incorrectly overruled by video replay against Denver in January. The next night, the emotionally charged Badgers ran roughshod over the host Pioneers 7-2.

The snub last weekend was the perception that Wisconsin wasn't deserving of its spot in the NCAA tournament because of a losing record. The Badgers' response off the ice was that the tournament field is selected by statistics crunched by a computer, and it did enough to get in.

Their response on the ice was again to hand Denver a beating, 6-2 in their NCAA opener. They then ran out to a 2-0 lead after two periods of the regional final against top seed North Dakota, only to lose 3-2 in overtime.

"That pretty much sums it up," Badgers junior goaltender Shane Connelly said. "We were right there the entire season, (that far away) from being a great team. Something always happened to bring us back. We made a huge step in these last two games. We just couldn't finish it off."

In summing up the season Tuesday, coach Mike Eaves downplayed the thought that Wisconsin needed the proper motivation to find its best efforts of the season.

"I think it's a lot of things coming together. I don't think it's just that," he said. "I think it's the fact that the seniors are winding down, you see that in their eyes. They see they have truly an opportunity to go and do something special. The fact that it was Denver and how that ended up when we were there might have been a part of that. But it was a lot of things coming together for these young men to play the way they did."

The 2007-08 season was a mixed bag for the Badgers (16-17-7).

The youngest team in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association -- and the youngest UW team in 21 years -- finished sixth in the league, having never strung together more than two wins in a row. A six-game unbeaten streak in January and early February helped the Badgers make the NCAA tournament, although that came down to help from others after they were eliminated from the WCHA playoffs in the first round.

Their scoring average was up more than a half-goal per game over last season. But Ben Street and Michael Davies shared the team lead with 13 goals apiece, tied with the 1965-66 Badgers for the lowest leading goal total in program history.

Wisconsin loses four seniors -- defensemen Davis Drewiske, Kyle Klubertanz and Josh Engel and winger Matthew Ford -- and saw rookie leading scorer Kyle Turris sign with the Phoenix Coyotes.

The Badgers also will have to wait and see whether defenseman Jamie McBain, the Carolina Hurricanes' second-round pick in 2006, will return for his junior season.

What's next? If history is a guide, the Badgers can take motivation from the way their season ended.

There's an easy comparison to be made between this UW team and the 2003-04 Badgers, who also lost in overtime in the regional finals. Both teams were heavy on freshmen and light on seniors. Both had to sweat out the final weekend before the NCAA tournament to see if they'd get in because they lost in the first round. Both had a freshman first-round NHL draft pick leave after the season -- it was defenseman Ryan Suter in 2004.

And both carried a bad taste in their mouths going into the offseason. This season, it was the sight of North Dakota celebrating a trip to the Frozen Four on the Kohl Center ice.

"Having a young team and having a group of fellas go through the type of experience we did Sunday, that's part and parcel of becoming a winner because you're walking through the fire," Eaves said. "You can't talk about that. You have to go through that. And I think the feeling they had their hearts after that game will be tremendous motivation in the summer and the spring as we start to train."

Following the 2004 disappointment, the Badgers returned to the NCAA tournament the next season and won the title two years later.

The Badgers will have to wait to see whether this was the start of something or just a mediocre season.

For now, they have the belief that they changed some minds last weekend lifting their chins.

"I believe that we've earned respect for what we did here this weekend," Connelly said after Sunday's loss. "We didn't finish the job. People can say we didn't belong here, but we beat a very good Denver team and we lost in overtime to North Dakota."

Todd D. Milewski  —  4/02/2008 6:21 am