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Wisconsin Hockey 23-24: Hastily Making Wisconsin Hockey Great Again

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digitalbooya said:
That was ugly. Passing was TERRIBLE!!
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Yeah they seem to have gotten away from those shorter hard passes that they feasted off of earlier in the year. Considering they only played well for two and a half out of six periods and got majority of the points is still a good outcome. There's much work to be done though in the overall game.

The officiating was quite the interesting situation. I don't know why the guy who hit Lindmark in the head didn't get a penalty and I don't know why the second Minnesota goal didn't count after the contact with Kyle that he was able to recover from and get into the net properly. If anything they could have called a penalty on the dude who hit Kyle. Then there was that scrum in front of that where the ref clearly pointed out he was going to call coincidental penalties and nobody went to the box lol
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I just read article off the Minneapolis newspaper and the coach there said that that was the best game he's ever seen Minnesota play in his six years at that dump, so take that for what it's worth in the analysis of how the game flowed.
 
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My apologies, I think my ascerbic wit and sarcasm got the best of me in my comments above.

From watching last night:

1) I synced Posick with the game so I didnt have to listen to the godawful student announcers. BTN needs to figure this out. If MLB can do it for 20yrs (allow simultaneous radio and TV broadcast) surely BTN can.

2) I tend to look at the season in series, so taking 9of12 from MN is a win in my book. There are always ups and downs across a season and weathering/surviving the downs is as important as having ups

3) Motzko was very upfront that it would be a tight series. Meaning defense would rule the day and there would not be a lot of offensive chance taking.

4) Posick metioned each night that that Zebra crew does not call penalties. That played out. It was also evident that when they didnt call penalties, they took some other action to even it out. I think thats exactly why the 2nd Goofer goal was disallowed. They should have called GT interferance and conveniently said McClellan had not reestablished himself in time. The first MN G called back has been consistent all year. Skates in the crease result in no goal. Badgers have had two called back on that this year.

5) MSU plays MI this week with the finale being at Little Caesars, which essentially becomes a home game for MI. Plus we have 2 games in hand on MSU with the final series against them in Madison.

6) need to take care of bisoness vs ND, PSU, and OSU. They control their own destiny. I choose to be optimistic.
 
digitalbooya said:
How is this for perspective:

-The team is 1-2-2 in their last five games.
-They look like a shell of themselves from earlier in the year.
-They have scored only 1 goal in three of their last four games.


We have to go at worst 5-1-0 in the next 6 against Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Penn State for there to be some sense of comfort. We also are 0-2 against MSU this season.

This team really needs to work on passing. Tonight they were so bad at it. Minnesota's passes felt like they were always tape to tape. Wisconsin was literally playing chip it off the boards and change and dump and change almost the entire game. Earlier in the season, we would have three crisp passes during the breakout and that would lead to puck possession through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone. Much more effective strategy that way than what we saw tonight.
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Can’t disagree with any of this. And yes, I’m gen x. The passing has been terrible for at least 2-3 weeks now. Old habits. Hastings is a GREAT coach and breaking these habits is probably the toughest aspect of coaching but he and Knott and Oliver need to coach this out of them. This is a far cry from the team in Oct/Nov/Dec.

having said that and having witnessed the brief malaise in 05-06 when Elliott went down and other factors crept in, this could yet be a blip.

there’s plenty of games left to right the ship, get up the hill, get the puppies to stop crapping the bed or what we other metaphor ME would use!
 
I’m not usually a glass half full guy but your program is still wayyyy ahead of schedule in terms of “rebuilding”

Hastings was a great hire- the people in charge didn’t overthink it

As a BC fan, I wouldn’t want to play you in the tournament
 
Was at the Friday night game. Ice seem a little soft/bad to anyone? I know with the weather makes it difficult to keep it consistent, but just seemed the ice looked rough and some of the bad passes/bouncing puck could be somewhat attributed to that.
 
They played awful Saturday, no doubt, and looked slow / gassed. But we took the season series from Minnesota for only the 9th time in 55 years. That's a good thing.

It seems to me that opponents have figured out Wisconsin's passing out of the D end, adjusted and bottled them up the last several weeks.
 
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Weekend recap: Minnesota OT Loss 2-1 Friday, and Tie w/ Shoot Out Win 1-1 Saturday.
Record: 20-6-2 overall (10-3-2-1 35 pts, 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] in Big7; Prev Wk: (2[SUP]nd[/SUP]), (n/c)
USCHO Poll: 4[SUP]th[/SUP] (0 of 50 first place votes); Prev Wk: 4[SUP]th[/SUP] (0 of 50 first place votes) (n/c)
PWR: 5[SUP]th[/SUP] of 64; Prev Wk: 5[SUP]th[/SUP] (n/c)
RPI: 5[SUP]th[/SUP] (USCHO) / 6[SUP]th [/SUP](CHN) of 64; Prev Wk: 5[SUP]th[/SUP] (n/c / -1)
Scoring: 3.39 GPG, 14[SUP]th[/SUP]; Prev Wk: 3.58 GPG, 12[SUP]th[/SUP] (-2)
Defense: 1.86 GAPG, 1[SUP]st[/SUP]; Prev Wk: 1.88 GAPG, 1[SUP]st[/SUP] (n/c)
Save %: .934, 1[SUP]st[/SUP]; Prev Wk: .932, 1[SUP]st[/SUP] (n/c)
Power Play Rate: 18.75% (21 of 112), 36[SUP]th[/SUP]; Prev Wk: 19.27% (21 of 109), 37[SUP]th[/SUP] (+1)
Penalty Kill Rate: 88.17% (82 of 93), 2[SUP]nd[/SUP]; Prev Wk: 87.91% (80 of 91), 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] (+1)
Penalty Min per Game: 10.64 (34[SUP]th[/SUP]) (1st is worst); Prev Wk: 11.31 (27[SUP]th[/SUP]) (+7)
Penalty Min: 298, Prev Wk: 294
Shorthanded Goals Scored; 2, T-32[SUP]nd[/SUP]; Prev Wk: 2, T-28[SUP]th[/SUP] (-4)
Shorthanded Goals Allowed: 2, T-30[SUP]th[/SUP] (1[SUP]st[/SUP] is worst); Prev Wk: 2, T-27[SUP]th[/SUP] (+3)
Team Faceoff: 54.7%, 6[SUP]th[/SUP]; Prev Wk: 54.6%, T-7[SUP]th[/SUP] (+1)
SOG taken: 998 (3[SUP]rd[/SUP]); Prev Wk 934 (3[SUP]rd[/SUP]) (n/c)
SOG allowed: 789 (29[SUP]th[/SUP]) (1[SUP]st[/SUP] is worst); Prev Wk: 717 (35[SUP]th[/SUP]) (-6)

Attendance update after huge weekend: Wisconsin up to 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] over Minnesota averaging 9,489 (Minnesota avg 9,429). Both chasing NoDak at 11,601 / game.

This week: Notre Dame 2/9/24 7 pm (TV – B1G+); Saturday 2/10/24 6 pm (TV – B1G+)
Next week: @Ohio State 2/16/24 6 pm (TV – B1G+); Saturday 2/17/24 3:30 pm (TV – BTN)
 
WiscTJK said:
They played awful Saturday, no doubt, and looked slow / gassed. But we took the season series from Minnesota for only the 9th time in 55 years. That's a good thing.
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I knew it was bad, but that is BAD.

This is a huge weekend, UND is a hard team to play against.

Lucius being back is critical. Any college team that loses it's best player is going to struggle a bit. It would help a lot if Silye got on a roll. He also has the worst +/- at -3
 
Timothy A said:
I knew it was bad, but that is BAD.

This is a huge weekend, UND is a hard team to play against.

Lucius being back is critical. Any college team that loses it's best player is going to struggle a bit. It would help a lot if Silye got on a roll. He also has the worst +/- at -3
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I think 6 is attainable, but based on play the last several weeks I will predict a split again. Hopefully, the team proves me wrong.
 
WiscTJK said:
They played awful Saturday, no doubt, and looked slow / gassed. But we took the season series from Minnesota for only the 9th time in 55 years. That's a good thing.

It seems to me that opponents have figured out Wisconsin's passing out of the D end, adjusted and bottled them up the last several weeks.
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As a former Wisconsin sports hero once said, I think everyone needs to R-E-L-A-X. I was at the game Saturday night, and I would agree that the ice was crappy. I get it, when the ice is crappy, both teams have to deal with it, but if you've ever played on bad ice, you know it changes the entire game. You have to really heave the passes to get them where you want them, the little touch passes are much harder to complete. I also agree that things are different in the second half of the season. Teams have had time to gel and they also have video to look at and breakdown to prepare. We played MN early on up at Mariucci, they had no idea what to expect, and no one was taking us seriously. Now, teams aren't looking past us, they're analyzing video and preparing. It's all stuff we can overcome and I'm still optimistic, but we also need to put this into perspective. We're performing FAR ahead of schedule, let's not get down on the boys just yet. There's a lot of hockey to play yet, we're a vastly improved team with a phenominal goalie and great defense. No one wants to play Wisconsin in the conference playoffs OR in the NCAA tourney. Let's Go Red!
 
Badger_Bretzky said:
As a former Wisconsin sports hero once said, I think everyone needs to R-E-L-A-X. I was at the game Saturday night, and I would agree that the ice was crappy. I get it, when the ice is crappy, both teams have to deal with it, but if you've ever played on bad ice, you know it changes the entire game. You have to really heave the passes to get them where you want them, the little touch passes are much harder to complete. I also agree that things are different in the second half of the season. Teams have had time to gel and they also have video to look at and breakdown to prepare. We played MN early on up at Mariucci, they had no idea what to expect, and no one was taking us seriously. Now, teams aren't looking past us, they're analyzing video and preparing. It's all stuff we can overcome and I'm still optimistic, but we also need to put this into perspective. We're performing FAR ahead of schedule, let's not get down on the boys just yet. There's a lot of hockey to play yet, we're a vastly improved team with a phenominal goalie and great defense. No one wants to play Wisconsin in the conference playoffs OR in the NCAA tourney. Let's Go Red!
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I second this viewpoint.
 
Sounds like Cruz Lucious will be available this weekend barring set backs this week. Per the Hastings press conference.
 
Everything just feels better when Badger hockey is relevant. The talk at the rink Saturday morning is about the game the previous night, and inevitably it leads to a story from a game gone by at some point, love it.
 
Hastings pregame: "it's easy to look at the rain. But sometimes you gotta look at the sunshine. I know the fans want us to get there faster. Our guys are coming to work everyday with their lunch pale." Parashrase.

Freaking love that guy.
 
srkbadger said:
I like the comeback capability, I do not like that they have to comeback. The power play needs to step up or it will be a difficult playoff/tournament season. I guess it's 3 points.
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They did score a power play goal but it got waved off of course. I'm just really happy that after not scoring on 14 minutes of power plays that they didn't pee the game away.
 
Felt like they really played with fire and Notre Dame just didn't bury their chances. It was what, two or three odd man rushes against while on the power play? Good grief. Happy to get the win. Please bury them with purpose tomorrow.
 
Seems like Lucius stirs the drink on this team - glad to see him back. I didn’t see the game but based on only 4 SOG in the third by ND it appears Bucky tightened up on D at the right time.

It’s getting to that time of the season where your best players need to play their best. Hopefully Silye and Lucius can maintain some consistency on the offensive end and the D can get back to limiting chances.

Carry the momentum from the final two periods into tonight and get the sweep - let’s go boys!!
 
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