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

[Timothy A]

Took a quick peak at the stats....Ceulemans leads the team in scoring with 20 pts. He also has the most shots.

Plus minus is interesting, but not a tell all. Ess is -20 and Gorniac is -17, eye poppingly bad. Bantle is the only plus guy plus at +2. In the kinda respectable range for a bad team we have R Donovan -4, Matty DSPh and Baker at -6, Stange -7, Inamoto -8, Ceulemans, Caufield and Laatsch -9.

Sad, very sad.

[digitalbooya]

I had second tier, 217 first row. Awesome seats in the corner, right above the band. My buddy who I go to Friday games with likes lower level. Can't see plays develop as well, IMO.

I had season tickets in 128 top row from 06-08. I loved those seats. Still go in that area when I go to games, which unfortunately hasn't been for 2 years now. The most recent good memory I have going to a game goes back to 2017... Corbin McGuire's slam dunk against Minnesota.

[The 7th Defenseman]

I've been following this thread for awhile, but have not posted much. However, with the regular season being over I thought I'd offer up my 2 cents on the team and TG.

The Good:
- Give credit where credit is due - at the time Barry bringing in TG, OZ, and DG was incredible. I'm not a college hockey insider or anything, but I would have been happy with any one of those three as head coaches. He did blow my socks off. No shame in losing DG to the NHL.

- The coaches seem like genuinely good people; neither they nor their players have embarrassed the university with scandals (maybe that should be a given, but I'm trying to find some positives).

- Solid recruiting (after last season I would have said great recruiting, now I'm not so sure). The skill on last year's team was fun to watch and bringing in players like Cole, Dylan, Alex, Corson, TPB, Ty E, K'Andre over the past few years is a credit to the coaches even if a few of these players didn't do much once in a Badgers uniform.

The Bad (I admit there's a lot of overlap on my list, but it's my list and this is how I'm doing it ;-)
- TG appears to have no ability to consistently motivate college hockey players. After six seasons I think TG's most consistent coaching characteristic is his "ability" to make sure a good period or game or, very rarely, series is followed by a frustratingly poor performance. How many times in six years have you thought to yourself - "we might not be the more talented team tonight, but our hustle/tenacity is going to give us a chance" or "if we can keep it close to the third period, then we'll wear them down and pull out the victory." Never. I've never thought that of a TG coached team. Which, as some of you have already posted, seems strange since TG, as a player, was known for his effort and tenacity.

- TG's teams are soft. I get this isn't the 80's or 90's and the powers-that-be are trying to take the aggression out of the sport (nearly every time there is a big hit that knocks someone to the ice or gets an excited reaction from the crowd a penalty is called; they should just add a penalty called "checking too hard"... but that's a rant for a different day), but these Badgers teams offer nearly no physicality. The current roster seems to have only a handful of players who even know checking is still allowed - Baker, Romaniac, Tyler, Dominic, and that's about it. I vaguely recall shortly after TG was hired hearing that his coaching staff actually discouraged checking. I suspect the lack of effort and lack of physicality are related and feed off of each other, but that's just speculation.

- TG can't fix problems during the course of a game/series/season. I'm struggling to think of any major issue this team has faced that TG was able to coach them out of. If the Badgers struggle with an issue during the first month of the season you can be certain that same issue will be there at the end of the season - d-zone coverage, terrible goaltending, inability to win a faceoff, awful special teams, or lack of offensive productivity).

- TG's team underperform. Someone posted here a few weeks ago that they thought Mike Eaves could coach this current team to a better record. I was having that same thought. Eaves won 8 games in his final season coaching a team that was mostly D-III talent, TG won just 9 with actual D-I talent. It's almost like TG cannot teach players to play an effective system of hockey. Prior to this year I would have said he's an okay coach of offensive hockey, but this year he's somehow managed to get his ENTIRE team to be in a scoring funk for nearly the entire season. I get one or two players being snake bit, but it takes a special kind of coach to undermine an entire team's offensive mojo (I know they lost a ton of offensive talent, and I was expecting a drop in scoring, but this has been ridiculous). TG's failure to coach d-zone coverage and special teams is well documented here, so I won't belabor it.

- Goalies get worse the longer they are on a TG coached hockey team. This is debatable, but it has been my impression that goalies actually get worse the longer they are on this team.
Jack Berry (as a Freshman he's 2.66 GAA and .882 Save%, Senior 3.52 and .882)
Kyle Hayton comes to WI as an all pro and leaves as a goalie who you can score on 9-times-out-of-10 if your just able to lift the puck off the ice.
Matt Jurusik leaves the Badgers with a 3.7 GAA and .882 Save%; a few years later he leaves Mich Tech with a 2.06 GAA and .924 Save%.
Daniel Lebedeff. It was a difficult few years watching Daniel flail about in the net. I wonder if anyone keeps a statistic on the number of times a goalie ends up lying on their back, with no part of their body still in the crease, and the puck in the net? To his credit he didn't get that much worse in his second year statistically (3.42 vs 3.56; .893 vs. .892).
Cameron Rowe. Does anyone think Cameron looks better this year?

I know this group has long debated bad goalie vs bad d-zone play. Fortunately, with TG as the coach, we don't have to choose. We can have both!!

Remember when UW was Goaltender U?

I could go on, but I think I'll wrap this up. TG is a great guy. I desperately wanted him to be successful at Wisconsin. I thought he would be successful. I was wrong.

[Timothy A]

Welcome aboard 7th Defenseman. An excellent post and one that basically sums up the whole mess. I was superjacked to see TG get the job too, as we all were, it has just worked out horribly wrong.

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of gnashing of teeth over the fact that some schools just keep re-loading and why can't UW? (TG himself said he was going going to get NHL talent and just re-load. Watts happened to that?) This summer the Sue lost 8 players to NHL deals and another 6 for other reasons and guess where they are right now? First place in Wattsever league they are in.

[WiscTJK]

7th defenseman and Tim are correct. No more needs to be said.

Goofers this weekend. I assume this will be a 2 loss weekend. Current record away from the Kohl Center: 1-11. Oof that's terrible. Goofers fighting for the Big7 championship, they will be motivated.

[The 7th Defenseman]

My predictions for this weekend ...
- Badgers lose both games by 3+ goals
- I'm setting the over/under on "# of goalies pulled" at 1; for the record I'm taking the over
- The Badger d-zone coverage will be okay at first, but after falling behind by a goal or two they will revert back to their d-zone coverage of the last four or five years and the backdoor/wide-open-in-the-slot goals will start piling up
- One of the few high-effort upper classman (Jack, Baker, Roman) will have a few shifts of real high energy; they'll skate like they are trying to motivate/spark the rest of the team. These efforts will be fruitless, the rest of the team will not respond, and they'll likely end up with a penalty that the Badgers will not kill

Sorry for the negativity. Hopefully I'm wrong and this weekend is the beginning of the most unexpected post-season run in Badger history.

F'm Bucky.

[Timothy A]

My predictions for this weekend ...
- Badgers lose both games by 3+ goals
- I'm setting the over/under on "# of goalies pulled" at 1; for the record I'm taking the over
- The Badger d-zone coverage will be okay at first, but after falling behind by a goal or two they will revert back to their d-zone coverage of the last four or five years and the backdoor/wide-open-in-the-slot goals will start piling up
- One of the few high-effort upper classman (Jack, Baker, Roman) will have a few shifts of real high energy; they'll skate like they are trying to motivate/spark the rest of the team. These efforts will be fruitless, the rest of the team will not respond, and they'll likely end up with a penalty that the Badgers will not kill

Sorry for the negativity. Hopefully I'm wrong and this weekend is the beginning of the most unexpected post-season run in Badger history.

F'm Bucky.

You are a realist. I appreciate it.

It pains we greatly to type this, but do we really want the most unexpected post-season run in Badger history? I think it is in the best interest of the program that McIntosh and King have zero hope of the future with this staff. Hope can make you blind to the real situation.

[The 7th Defenseman]

You are a realist. I appreciate it.

It pains we greatly to type this, but do we really want the most unexpected post-season run in Badger history? I think it is in the best interest of the program that McIntosh and King have zero hope of the future with this staff. Hope can make you blind to the real situation.

Fair point. Probably not ... unless that run ends up with another National Championship. I'm going to go out-on-a-limb here and say this team isn't National Championship caliber, so I guess it's best the season ends on Saturday night at the hands of the gophers. Did I just write that????

[WiscTJK]

Fair point. Probably not ... unless that run ends up with another National Championship. I'm going to go out-on-a-limb here and say this team isn't National Championship caliber, so I guess it's best the season ends on Saturday night at the hands of the gophers. Did I just write that????

Well it won't end there. It will end the following weekend in the first round of the Big7 playoffs at either Ohio State or Notre Dame. And I agree with Tim, best to have them lose for the program to have a chance to rebuild from the ground up.

[Timothy A]

I suppose it would be fun to spoil the rodents party for the big 16 title if it's still in question. Obviously I have not been paying attention to the league standings.

[Timothy A]

My predictions for this weekend ...
- Badgers lose both games by 3+ goals
- I'm setting the over/under on "# of goalies pulled" at 1; for the record I'm taking the over
- The Badger d-zone coverage will be okay at first, but after falling behind by a goal or two they will revert back to their d-zone coverage of the last four or five years and the backdoor/wide-open-in-the-slot goals will start piling up

F'm Bucky.

LoL. This is exactly Watts happened other than moe getting yanked, only because it was too late in the 3rd period to spark the comeback.

[solovsfett]

What did the coaches say post-game? Do they have any ****ing pride? Strobes used to be such a hothead, Granato too. What happened to them?


all we have are memories now:

Here, remember some good times: https://youtu.be/3lLX8zS8Xco

https://youtu.be/2GT1pCSjNPw

https://youtu.be/YSYw8Ug_AeU

https://youtu.be/i6peRX82pE8

[Timothy A]

"They got up and running and we couldn't handle the speed and their work ethic and their compete level in the third period," UW coach Tony Granato said.

Does he not understand that he is completely responsible for this; motivationally, schematically and at the execution level? I don't recall any time when TG or his staff have taken responsibility for this mess personally. I haven't seen all the press conferences but I have read just about everything TDM has written.

And when you watch the rinkside presser, he never wears a hat that says anything about UW hockey, it only has that stupid Under Amour logo on it. Yes this is trivial, but wear the swag of the team you are coaching and not one you probably have a personal contract with.

[digitalbooya]

One last regular season *** whoopin' for Granato tonight.

[digitalbooya]

The passing on this team is god awful.