Wisconsin Women's Hockey 2022-2023

[Steamboat]

Hello, I'll be attending today after all, which I'm glad for, but am looking for advice on maybe quickest easy-out parking as I have another event I have to run off to. I'm hoping UW is leading 4-0 with 3 minutes left so I can safely leave a bit early but I know that's probably wishful thinking. But anyway, I'll be cutting it close so hope to find something I can leave quickly. Thank you.

If Wisconsin is behind 4 - 0 with 3 minutes left you could also leave early.

[Timothy A]

Ludwig is reffing, shocker.

[Steamboat]

Very pleased to see that Annie Pankowski was giving color on the B1G telecast of the game. A shame we didn't get to see more of her talent after she graduated.
For those in need of a drinking game, hit it every time the male announcer says "absolutely". (Only half shots if doing thinner).

[ARM]

For those in need of a drinking game, hit it every time the male announcer says "absolutely".

Is it the same male PbP guy as yesterday on the telecast? He loved the word "ricochet".

[robertearle]

During the 3rd period, there was a young woman in that walkway behind the north goal wearing 'sweats' and on crutches. When the period ended, she immediately headed off in the direction of the UW locker room.

I can't say for certain that it was Gervais, but that would be the obvious guess. :-(

[Timothy A]

During the 3rd period, there was a young woman in that walkway behind the north goal wearing 'sweats' and on crutches. When the period ended, she immediately headed off in the direction of the UW locker room.

I can't say for certain that it was Gervais, but that would be the obvious guess. :-(

Sprained ankle according to MJ.

It was a love/hate day for me and Kronish yesterday. Made some big saves and had some yikes goal(s). Today in relief she wiped out the hate all together, such a great performance. I feel confident after today she could be the full time #1 if needed. Obviously MJ knew what he had when he didn't bring in a transfer. If she doesn't have the yikes it's a Badger sweep.

Game 1:
I was shocked in the shootout the first 2 shooters went backhand after during the game Vetter stopped at least 2 if not 3 of those. There's other places to shoot besides there.

Compher has deceptive speed. On her 2 breakaways she actually pulled away from the chasers to get unmolested shots.

Really dumb play lead to the shorty. A hard rim dump in with no Badger on the opposite side to corral the puck the rodents picked it up at speed and it was off to the races. The D tried to block the centering pass, but somehow it went in. I did not see a replay.

UW generated better scoring chances overall.

No 4th line that I saw, no Helgeson.

Game 2:
The rodents has 2 longer periods of possession but they did not generate many shots.

UW generated better scoring chances as well in this game too.

Super dirty play when Simms gets knocked to the ice in the 3rd period off a faceoff and rodent player punches/crosschecks her in the head multiple times, no call. She was so stunned she could barely get back to the bench. She should have just laid there, it would have stopped the play and perhaps a call could have been made on some sort of challenge. That was a 5 minute right there. Overall way too much rough stuff was not called.

I saw the 4th line out once as a unit and a few other times I saw GS and Enright out there. Helgeson also had a few shifts. I have been critical of her in the past, but she made very heady plays.

My conclusion is that these teams are pretty evenly matched but WI generated more quality scoring chances overall, played better transition D and in zone D so in the end I think UW has a slight edge on UM.

[Patricio]

Sprained ankle according to MJ.

It was a love/hate day for me and Kronish yesterday. Made some big saves and had some yikes goal(s). Today in relief she wiped out the hate all together, such a great performance. I feel confident after today she could be the full time #1 if needed. Obviously MJ knew what he had when he didn't bring in a transfer. If she doesn't have the yikes it's a Badger sweep.

Game 1:
I was shocked in the shootout the first 2 shooters went backhand after during the game Vetter stopped at least 2 if not 3 of those. There's other places to shoot besides there.

Compher has deceptive speed. On her 2 breakaways she actually pulled away from the chasers to get unmolested shots.

Really dumb play lead to the shorty. A hard rim dump in with no Badger on the opposite side to corral the puck the rodents picked it up at speed and it was off to the races. The D tried to block the centering pass, but somehow it went in. I did not see a replay.

UW generated better scoring chances overall.

No 4th line that I saw, no Helgeson.

Game 2:
The rodents has 2 longer periods of possession but they did not generate many shots.

UW generated better scoring chances as well in this game too.

Super dirty play when Simms gets knocked to the ice in the 3rd period off a faceoff and rodent player punches/crosschecks her in the head multiple times, no call. She was so stunned she could barely get back to the bench. She should have just laid there, it would have stopped the play and perhaps a call could have been made on some sort of challenge. That was a 5 minute right there. Overall way too much rough stuff was not called.

I saw the 4th line out once as a unit and a few other times I saw GS and Enright out there. Helgeson also had a few shifts. I have been critical of her in the past, but she made very heady plays.

My conclusion is that these teams are pretty evenly matched but WI generated more quality scoring chances overall, played better transition D and in zone D so in the end I think UW has a slight edge on UM.

A very interesting weekend. MJ certainly had the team ready to play, and the quality and level of play was very encouraging. This team will be ready for the second half of the season and tournament play.

The positives I took from the two games:

• Kronish definitely proved she is a solid goalie. She did allow 2 goals because she did not seal the posts with her pads on Saturday. This problem surprised me, but it should be correctable easily with a little coaching. Her play on Sunday was very good as she had to fill in for Gervais who got injured very early in the 1^st period, and from what I could see, she in fact did do a much better job sealing the posts. The only MN goal on Sunday was on a powerplay featuring MN’s top line not one due to any misplay on her part.

• The third line played with tons of energy and accounted for 3 of the 7 goals over the weekend and Jungels accounted for a 4th. They younger players had a big role in stifling MN overall. They definitely have started to gel.

On the negative side:

• At times, the Badgers continued to struggle with clearing their zone. Some of the passing was baffling, but they did manage to recover sufficiently to avoid serious damage. Still, it tended to make the level of play more anxiety provoking than I prefer. The team has had this problem before, and I continue to wonder why they continue to struggle with it. With teams like MN and OSU, it easily could prove costly.

• The officiating often was confounding. They allowed MN to hold, cross check, slash, and throw an occasional punch. MN clearly was frustrated, especially on Sunday, and they often took their physical level of play a bit too far. The manner in which the Badgers did not allow this to throw off their game was another big plus.

The biggest negative was the injury to Gervais. It was not clear what it may be, but she had a lot of difficulty skating off, attempting to avoid putting any weight on her left knee and leg. And she went to the locker room immediately. Fortunately, according to Timothy A's post, it looks like only a sprained ankle, not a knee. I think Kronish has shown she is very capable, but it would be nice to have a second quality goalie to share the workload.

I agree with Timothy A's comments as well.

[Still Eeyore]

Super dirty play when Simms gets knocked to the ice in the 3rd period off a faceoff and rodent player punches/crosschecks her in the head multiple times, no call. She was so stunned she could barely get back to the bench. She should have just laid there, it would have stopped the play and perhaps a call could have been made on some sort of challenge. That was a 5 minute right there. Overall way too much rough stuff was not called.

You overstate what happened. It was a face-off between Simms and Madison Kaiser. Kaiser hit Simms in the head once. After that, Kaiser was just trying to disengage. It should have been a penalty, but it didn't happen in a vacuum. Wisconsin was constantly committing interference on face-offs without getting called.

The officiating often was confounding. They allowed MN to hold, cross check, slash, and throw an occasional punch. MN clearly was frustrated, especially on Sunday, and they often took their physical level of play a bit too far. The manner in which the Badgers did not allow this to throw off their game was another big plus.

This, too, misrepresents what happened. The uncalled penalties went both ways, both obstruction and rough stuff. The officiating was brutal. Once again, a WCHA crew simply refused to do their jobs. Greg Shepherd is either a coward, or he doesn't understand his job, which is to supervise the league's officials enforce the rules that are written in the NCAA rulebook. They do not do this. They do not even come close to doing this. They have decided that WCHA games should be played by a different, unwritten, set of rules without ever petitioning the NCAA to make their separate rulebook official. It is gross, unethical behavior.

The result is a series like this weekend, which got progressively dirtier by both teams as Ludwig and Kaehler, other than a 90 second stretch in the second period today which was officiated entirely differently the the other 1:18:30 played, pretty much ignored the problems developing right in front of them. Someone is going to get seriously hurt, and the blame will fall entirely upon Greg Shepherd and his enablers.

[Timothy A]

You overstate what happened. It was a face-off between Simms and Madison Kaiser. Kaiser hit Simms in the head once. After that, Kaiser was just trying to disengage. It should have been a penalty, but it didn't happen in a vacuum. Wisconsin was constantly committing interference on face-offs without getting called.

This, too, misrepresents what happened. The uncalled penalties went both ways, both obstruction and rough stuff. The officiating was brutal. Once again, a WCHA crew simply refused to do their jobs. Greg Shepherd is either a coward, or he doesn't understand his job, which is to supervise the league's officials enforce the rules that are written in the NCAA rulebook. They do not do this. They do not even come close to doing this. They have decided that WCHA games should be played by a different, unwritten, set of rules without ever petitioning the NCAA to make their separate rulebook official. It is gross, unethical behavior.

The result is a series like this weekend, which got progressively dirtier by both teams as Ludwig and Kaehler, other than a 90 second stretch in the second period today which was officiated entirely differently the the other 1:18:30 played, pretty much ignored the problems developing right in front of them. Someone is going to get seriously hurt, and the blame will fall entirely upon Greg Shepherd and his enablers.

Disengage by pushing Simm's head into the ice with her stick like she was beating a rug.

The officiating was terrible. The start of game 2 was very physical and Compher got a penalty right away, but that did nothing to tone the play down. Ludwig calls matching minors once in each game, maybe his way of saying settle down, but it was a pathetic attempt. I thought it was a matter of time before someone got injured. If I was a ref, I would at a stoppage went to each bench and told them to tone it down or the rest of the game was going to be played 3 on 3. The quality of play would have been even better, which we all would have enjoyed. And then they completely missed a goal being scored!?!? I think Kaehler who I don't recall seeing before was right there at the net. There was a UW person on the press level jumping all around indicating a goal was missed to signal to the UW bench to challenge. And the double review on game one? Wouldn't you review all aspects of the play or while reviewing the net deal notice as ref's who is "trained" on the rules to notice the goalie was interfered with? We all can assume Ludwig will ref the OSU games as well. And I recall reading the OSU/MN series was also very physical with OSU being more heavy than MN. Oh joy. I've always wanted to attend an NHL game. I might get a chance to see 2.

[Hockeybuckeye]

It sound like I would have liked to have seen this series. Having been to all of OSU's home games I agree with your perspective on the WCHA officiating from what I've seen.
Penalties are called but many are overlooked that happen right in front of the refs. I've seen several games this season that have been allowed to get out of control physically.

[TitleIXHockey]

Why did Wisconsin had 21 days of rest before the Minnesota series and 14 days of rest after?

[robertearle]

Why did Wisconsin had 21 days of rest before the Minnesota series and 14 days of rest after?

Somebody speculated that it might have to do with (pre Covid, maybe) regular mid-November international play; Four Nations, the current Rivalry series, etc. I looked at last year, for example, and this year is only one weekend worse that last year, when it was weekend-off/weekend-play/weekend-off in mid November. How much of that is under Wisconsin's control, and how much the WCHA? If the WCHA doesn't schedule you, what are you gonna do? Try to find a non-conference series, maybe succeed, maybe not.

[NMH]

And the double review on game one? Wouldn't you review all aspects of the play or while reviewing the net deal notice as ref's who is "trained" on the rules to notice the goalie was interfered with?

This is because of the rule change this year. Several reviewable plays require a coaches' challenge for review now. The first review, initiated by the refs, was to see if the net came off before the goal was scored. In order to look at goalie interference, they had to get the challenge from Frosty. And Mark had to rely on the video folks in the press box to decide if he should challenge back.

Todd Milewski wrote about coaches challenges recently and IMO there's some really interesting stuff from Mark on why this change is a particular issue in women's hockey.
https://badgerextra.com/sports/hocke...30cb8087e.html

When I asked Mark about the challenges in post game Friday, he repeated several times that he doesn't have video to see. They're entirely reliant on someone else to quickly make that call.

Occasionally, the staff would be able to look up to the video board and see it, but no video/tablet etc .. is allowed on the bench. And then think of rinks like OSU, where there is no video board.
IDK, I need to ask around more and look into, but it seems like this rule is incredibly unfair in the women's game.

[NMH]

Somebody speculated that it might have to do with (pre Covid, maybe) regular mid-November international play; Four Nations, the current Rivalry series, etc. I looked at last year, for example, and this year is only one weekend worse that last year, when it was weekend-off/weekend-play/weekend-off in mid November. How much of that is under Wisconsin's control, and how much the WCHA? If the WCHA doesn't schedule you, what are you gonna do? Try to find a non-conference series, maybe succeed, maybe not.

Yes, that was normally Four Nations. Teams have to create their schedules four-ish years in advance in terms of filling non-conference and blocking off any weeks. After playing a few different Thanksgiving week tournaments, they didn't attend one this year. It's just a confluence of some unfortunate events and timing.

[ARM]

They're entirely reliant on someone else to quickly make that call...
IDK, I need to ask around more and look into, but it seems like this rule is incredibly unfair in the women's game.

It's probably more similar to volleyball where the coaches have to trust their players on the ice to know when to challenge (did you touch it?) or not.