Wisconsin Hockey 21-22: Your Guess Is As Good As Mine

[WiscTJK]

....

As for your last comment, I'm cool with seeing how the season goes before whining about the coaching staff that just came off their best year.

And if you take off your badger colored sunglasses, they under-peformed last year when it counted.....Best year under Granato, yes, but that's easy based on previous 4 years. I think a .500 record will be about where they land. And no NCAA playoff for 5 of 6 years. Unacceptable. I hope I am wrong about my pessimism and hope you are right (and I'll be willing to admit I was wrong). I just don't see it. I'll be there next Friday to see how the team looks!

[Timothy A]

The outlier from my perspective is last year was the only year where the team averaged less than 3 goals against per game. But again, I attribute the horrible defense to Kalynuk and Miller for the prior years.
I'm not worried about having stellar defense this year with the return of Inamoto, Kehrer, Ess, Peltonen, Vorlicky, and Rowe. Those guys might not be fantastic offensively, but they can hold down the defensive fort. There is ZERO chance they put up the defensive numbers of the 18-19 or 19-20 teams.

I'm 100% on board with this.

They will score goals. MdSP lead the USHL in scoring on 19-20 (30g 30a in 49 games). We won't be playing behind all the guys that left anymore. Max Johnson has 122 pts in 143 college games. Bantle was 12th in the USHL in scoring in 19-20 (20g 19a) and he has a year of college under his belt already. I think the key is for Lindmark and Gorniak to step up into being major contributors and for Caulfield and Ahcan to keep it rolling.

Ceulemans on the PP is a big weapon too. It will take some of the sting away from loosing all the PP talent, which in retrospect was a crazy amount of talent on the ice at one time.

In the end we all want to see a great season, that's Watts counts.

[digitalbooya]

And if you take off your badger colored sunglasses, they under-peformed last year when it counted.....Best year under Granato, yes, but that's easy based on previous 4 years. I think a .500 record will be about where they land. And no NCAA playoff for 5 of 6 years. Unacceptable. I hope I am wrong about my pessimism and hope you are right (and I'll be willing to admit I was wrong). I just don't see it. I'll be there next Friday to see how the team looks!

Here's the thing, I was probably the earliest guy to want Granato fired. During the 17-18 season, I remember being at the North Dakota Saturday game (a 2-2 tie) and thinking they couldn't make it through the neutral zone and they were always moving backwards. I remember thinking that Granato doesn't care about defense and that all he wants is more goalz. That might have worked in the 80s, but that's not how college hockey is nowadays. You have to play great defense to win games and last year was the sticking point for me. They were around 2.5 GAA and they doubled up wins vs losses.

Looking at the schedule I only see six games that I don't feel that great about (Michigan x 4, SCSU x 2).

[digitalbooya]

I'm 100% on board with this.

They will score goals. MdSP lead the USHL in scoring on 19-20 (30g 30a in 49 games). We won't be playing behind all the guys that left anymore. Max Johnson has 122 pts in 143 college games. Bantle was 12th in the USHL in scoring in 19-20 (20g 19a) and he has a year of college under his belt already. I think the key is for Lindmark and Gorniak to step up into being major contributors and for Caulfield and Ahcan to keep it rolling.

Ceulemans on the PP is a big weapon too. It will take some of the sting away from loosing all the PP talent, which in retrospect was a crazy amount of talent on the ice at one time.

In the end we all want to see a great season, that's Watts counts.

I don't expect them to be last season good, but par for the course would be right around 3 goals for per game. It will be interesting to see all the guys who step up into those roles that were filled by Caufield/Holloway/TPB/Weissbach/etc and how they do.

I have heard great things about Ceulemans, from Minnesota fans no less, so I am hoping he is a stud from the start.

Nice to see the women's team off to a good start!

[Timothy A]

Nice to see the women's team off to a good start!

Merrimack is next. Kato beat them badly last week and they suck. It's gonna be a bloodbath.

[Timothy A]

There's some hockey this weekend. It will be interesting to read how it plays out.

The 2nd pp group is a bit changed: Bantle, Baker, Ryder/Johnson, Malmquist, Ess/Kehrer. Still no Gorniak, but at least Johnson is in the mix.
Top pp is still Ahcan, Caufield, Stange, DsP, Ceulemans.

[digitalbooya]

There's some hockey this weekend. It will be interesting to read how it plays out.

The 2nd pp group is a bit changed: Bantle, Baker, Ryder/Johnson, Malmquist, Ess/Kehrer. Still no Gorniak, but at least Johnson is in the mix.
Top pp is still Ahcan, Caufield, Stange, DsP, Ceulemans.

I think that top unit looks pretty good from a player standpoint. Just have to hope they mesh well.

[Timothy A]

Lines from today:

Dumb penalty Achan Baker Caufield
Stange Lindmark DsP
Bantle Mersch Donovan
Urdahl Malquist Gorniak
Morrison Brown Johnson

Don't like Johnson being on the 5th line, I'd flip him with Donovan, but TG seems to really like Donovan for some reason.

Inamoto Ceulemans
Peltonen Martin
Ess LaMaster
Laatsch Kerher

Looks like they paired a newbie/not terribly experienced guy with an experienced guy on all 4 pairs, so I don't think this is what we will see next weekend.

Rowe gave up 1 goal, Moe 2, empty net 1
Achan took another bad penalty
Bantle has an arm in a sling,
Stange missed an easy one in the first but did score in the 3rd.

[Timothy A]

Hello? Knock knock....Hey, um, there is hockey being played for real in a few days. I'd like to see them get through the first 4 games 3-1 before the brutal stretch of St. Cloud, UM, um; get through there .500 overall. Then make a little hay with MSU ND Clarkson and PSU to the Christmas break. Taking inspiration from MJ, the whole season is a building project into March so lets enjoy watching the lads develop.

[Timothy A]

I just landed 2 tickets to Saturday night to do a double header with the women's game. Life is very good. Smileyface.

[Timothy A]

In pondering the interest level on this site, as I look at the other threads I don't even see a rodent thread.

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Okay, maybe this has already been noted, but I didn’t see it until today…

Is Liam Malmquist the grandson of Crazylegs Hirsch?

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Okay, maybe this has already been noted, but I didn’t see it until today…

Is Liam Malmquist the grandson of Crazylegs Hirsch?

Would be a cool story, but no. Liam's dad is Derek Malmquist who had a cup of coffee with Harvard Hockey ages ago. Elroy's daughter Patty married Doug Malmquist, and their kids are Ford and Grant. Whether Doug and Derek are related somehow is a possibility, but that still wouldn't make Liam and ol' Crazylegs related at all.

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Would be a cool story, but no. Liam's dad is Derek Malmquist who had a cup of coffee with Harvard Hockey ages ago. Elroy's daughter Patty married Doug Malmquist, and their kids are Ford and Grant. Whether Doug and Derek are related somehow is a possibility, but that still wouldn't make Liam and ol' Crazylegs related at all.

Okay, figured that would’ve wound up in Liam’s bio on the website if he was.

But Liam’s mom in said bio is also named Patricia (not unlike Elroy’s daughter), which is what had me going.

[TJ77]

Okay, maybe this has already been noted, but I didn’t see it until today…

Is Liam Malmquist the grandson of Crazylegs Hirsch?

Never thought of a connection before, but was cool to see Jenny Taft at the Badger football game. She is the sideline reporter for Fox and the daughter of John Taft, one of the all time greats in Badger hockey history. Two time National Champion and captain of the 1976 Olympic team. They even showed her on the ice at La Bahn.