Wisconsin Women's Hockey 2022-2023

[Lindsay]

Lol....le was parked in front of the net during the pp in the 2nd period. Umd is the better team do far. Get out of the d zone easy, tape to tape passes, pp creates chances. It seems like they have an extra player on the ice all the time. Bummer.

Oh ok. I didn’t watch yesterday. I wouldn’t abandon her as a net front present right away nonetheless.

Seems like a great second half is ahead in terms of parity. OSU Wisconsin will be a great series.

[Hockeybuckeye]

Wow! I can't believe Wisconsin got swept at home. I thought that wouldn't happen until the Buckeyes came to town! (Wink)

[wiscolorado]

What a fantastically disappointing series for the Badgers. I am not sure if I'm more inclined to takeaway that UMD is a lot better than I realized, or that UW is not as good this year as I thought/hoped. Perhaps both of those things are true to an extent. I am extremely impressed with how well UMD defended. The Bulldogs hardly made a defensive mistake all weekend, and they blocked so many shots and passes. UW didn't make many mistakes either, but there were a few, and they paid for them.

UW simply must improve offensively. One goal in three games is patently unacceptable, even against good opponents. As stalwart defensively as UMD was this weekend, UW did have a good number of decent scoring chances in both games. They were struggling to generate A+ chances, but they had enough decent chances that they should have been able to finish a few of them.

[robertearle]

About the middle of the third period, this thought occurred to me, and right now I honestly don't know the answer: which is more likely, that Wisconsin wins the WCHA, or Wisconsin fails to make the NCAA tournament?

Neither, of course, is likely, but which is less unlikely. I do not know.

(Also, when's the last time they got swept at home? Raty-era Gophers, 2014 or so?)

[Hockeybuckeye]

Hey Timothy A, I've asked you this in previous seasons but any chance of you coming to Columbus next weekend?
What about any other Wisconsin forum members?

[Timothy A]

What a fantastically disappointing series for the Badgers. I am not sure if I'm more inclined to takeaway that UMD is a lot better than I realized, or that UW is not as good this year as I thought/hoped.

Both.

[robertearle]

Both.

Duluth played for the National Championship last year (and got beat on a couple fairly fluky goals).

[wiscolorado]

Duluth played for the National Championship last year (and got beat on a couple fairly fluky goals).

Ah, I knew that OSU won last year, but I didn't know that UMD was the runner up. Coming into this weekend, I really just knew that UW had a better record than UMD so far this season (although not by a huge margin). I just moved back to Madison last summer after being away for a few years, so I'm getting back into college hockey and caught up with things this season. It turns out that it's kind of difficult to follow college hockey from southern California and southern Arizona....

[robertearle]

Ah, I knew that OSU won last year, but I didn't know that UMD was the runner up. Coming into this weekend, I really just knew that UW had a better record than UMD so far this season (although not by a huge margin). I just moved back to Madison last summer after being away for a few years, so I'm getting back into college hockey and caught up with things this season. It turns out that it's kind of difficult to follow college hockey from southern California and southern Arizona....

I lived in Torrance CA for about 25 years, including the time period when UW women's hockey became what they are now. Trust me, it's gotta be a WHOLE lot easier now than it was in 2006.

[ARM]

When looking at UMD in the standings, it helps to remember that they have completed their season series with tOSU, and now, they're also done with UW. Other than their second series with the Gophers, and that's in Duluth, they'll be a clear favorite in their remaining games.

When UMD has Soderberg in net, with Bell and Flaherty in front of her, I think that's as challenging a back half to score on as there is in the country. The 'Dogs don't have the offensive depth of some teams, but they have two comeback wins versus UW, and they rallied from two down to force OT with UM. They seem to be greater than the sum of their parts.

As for UW, the Badgers have a ton of talent. However, they are also counting on a lot of young talent, while the other contenders rely heavily on senior leaders. UW has seniors, too, but the Badgers seem to be better set for the future than the other WCHA teams.

[wiscolorado]

I lived in Torrance CA for about 25 years, including the time period when UW women's hockey became what they are now. Trust me, it's gotta be a WHOLE lot easier now than it was in 2006.

I can imagine! The proliferation of streing options is a great thing. Even so, for me, I found it hard to stay interested in the team when I was far away from Madison and unable to attend any games in person. And I had plenty of other things going on in my life to keep me occupied. For those couple of years, I would check in on the scores every now and again, to see how the team was doing, but that was about it. I did find ESPN's Spanish language stream of the 2021 national championship game that I watched from Tucson. I am still unsure why I was only able to access a Spanish stream, and not an English one, but mostly I was just happy to have a way to watch!

[wiscolorado]

When looking at UMD in the standings, it helps to remember that they have completed their season series with tOSU, and now, they're also done with UW. Other than their second series with the Gophers, and that's in Duluth, they'll be a clear favorite in their remaining games.

When UMD has Soderberg in net, with Bell and Flaherty in front of her, I think that's as challenging a back half to score on as there is in the country. The 'Dogs don't have the offensive depth of some teams, but they have two comeback wins versus UW, and they rallied from two down to force OT with UM. They seem to be greater than the sum of their parts.

As for UW, the Badgers have a ton of talent. However, they are also counting on a lot of young talent, while the other contenders rely heavily on senior leaders. UW has seniors, too, but the Badgers seem to be better set for the future than the other WCHA teams.

That is important context that I was unaware of. I was very impressed with Soderberg this weekend. She was fantastic, especially on Saturday. UMD can beat anyone in the country if she is playing as well as she did this weekend.

There's a lot left still to play for this season, and we'll see how things turn out, but it is nice to know that the expectation is that this season should be at worst a slight and temporary downturn from the normal level we are accustomed to in Madison. It is fun to see how players improve during their time in the program.

[Timothy A]

When looking at UMD in the standings, it helps to remember that they have completed their season series with tOSU, and now, they're also done with UW. Other than their second series with the Gophers, and that's in Duluth, they'll be a clear favorite in their remaining games.

When UMD has Soderberg in net, with Bell and Flaherty in front of her, I think that's as challenging a back half to score on as there is in the country. The 'Dogs don't have the offensive depth of some teams, but they have two comeback wins versus UW, and they rallied from two down to force OT with UM. They seem to be greater than the sum of their parts.

As for UW, the Badgers have a ton of talent. However, they are also counting on a lot of young talent, while the other contenders rely heavily on senior leaders. UW has seniors, too, but the Badgers seem to be better set for the future than the other WCHA teams.

The D is fine, the goaltending is fine. The top end players are not getting it done for UW offensively. The expectation was the Olympic residency players would play big and play big in big games. Compher, Curl, Eden and Harvey should be the one the team leans in the big games to score. Then the next level are SS and OB. They don't have someone who can make the big plays when they need to like Pankowski and Roque did. It's not there, now. Is going to somehow come together? It's getting late in the season to expect a player or players to suddenly raise the level of play. Something is missing.

To see them lose at Q, then have more good than bad yesterday and more bad than good tonight shows they are trending in the wrong direction.

Maybe slide Picard up to C the 3rd line. She's was more noticeable this weekend than Simms with a lot less playing time.

[robertearle]

I can imagine! The proliferation of streing options is a great thing. Even so, for me, I found it hard to stay interested in the team when I was far away from Madison and unable to attend any games in person. And I had plenty of other things going on in my life to keep me occupied. For those couple of years, I would check in on the scores every now and again, to see how the team was doing, but that was about it. I did find ESPN's Spanish language stream of the 2021 national championship game that I watched from Tucson. I am still unsure why I was only able to access a Spanish stream, and not an English one, but mostly I was just happy to have a way to watch!

"Streaming" helped turn me into a Badger women's team fan.

I was sitting around doing nothing on a Saturday night in early 2004 when I thought to check and see how the men's team was doing. As it happened, they were playing right then (North Dakota), and the UW web site has a stream of the game available; such video streaming was just becoming "good enough" around then. So I watched, and then got into the habit of checking for such video streams of UW home games; often as not the streams were of the women's team. I started watching them just as they got 'good', and before long I was hooked.

But video streams were few and far between otherwise, sometimes you could find streams of radio broadcasts (Bemidji, particularly). Often there was only "live stats" windows. For national championships, you could find a cable broadcast on some channel or other, and then go to the local sports bar and talk them into putting the game on a monitor way over in the corner while the rest of the bar watching basketball 'March Madness'. (I remember particularly that UW lost the 2008 championship the same day some kid named Steph Curry and Davidson (who?) were taking down the UW basketball team.)

[ARM]

The D is fine, the goaltending is fine. The top end players are not getting it done for UW offensively. The expectation was the Olympic residency players would play big and play big in big games. Compher, Curl, Eden and Harvey should be the one the team leans in the big games to score. Then the next level are SS and OB. They don't have someone who can make the big plays when they need to like Pankowski and Roque did.

I'd definitely include O'Brien in your top level. Shirley has been a top-line player on a championship team. I'd have them near the top, and in SS's case, making a play doesn't necessarily mean scoring. It is hard to look to Harvey and Compher to be the nucleus of the team when it is their first year with a team that has so many vets with a couple of rings. The situation was different when Duggan or Pankowski returned, as their teammates were accustomed to rallying around them.

The D and goaltending might be fine, but they aren't yet at championship Wisconsin level. You've had teams where they weren't going to give the opponent anything, and eventually, the offense was going to score. I'd take UMD's goaltending over yours. Maybe that will change in a couple of months, but that's how it looks now.