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Wisconsin Hockey 24-25 Improving With All Due Haste.

Timothy A said:
Fascinating. I don't want to dive into it myself. I'm torn. He's had 2 recruiting classes and a wide open portal for 2 years to improve the talent and apparently has not; or his staff is so bad that the improved talent is being wasted. I suppose firing Longo bought him another couple years. As we see in hockey with the portal, not everyone you bring in meshes with what you have or want to do and with some guys who left, the grass is not always greener on the other side. The difference is in FB they get spring and summer practices and a long fall official practice period. Hockey gets 2 weeks of official practice, then the games. It's nuts.
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agreed. I’m torn as well. I think some of the anti-Fickell crowd were anti-Fickell from the jump because they’re pissed Leonhard didn’t get the job. The other people have now been swayed by 2 years of results or lack thereof and the alums who are quite vocal on social media.

i buy the notion the team hasn’t improved or in games doesn’t make adjustments, etc.

however I also understand Fickell inherited a cupboard that was quite bare and that’s not his fault. The d-line is atrocious as are most of the linebackers. QB is terrible etc. unfortunately the portal is not the answer for football. Bball yes, because 1-2 guys can make a huge difference but football you need guys to grow into the systems and learn them backwards and forwards.

it’s tough because Alvarez had a vision and made sure his assistants shared that vision and he ran off like 30+ players his first season.

I think the alums want that.

Fickell is a CEO coach like Bobby Bowden so he needs to get his OC and DC squared away and they run the show with minimal interference.

i guess I don’t have a strong opinion on either style but to watch in real time ex-players go off (even basketball guys like Ben Brust “I never connected with Fickell from the first press conference”) and then seeing the parents of current and soon-to-be signees chime in and tell them to stop has been fascinating. I’ve never seen this before in 40+ years of watching sports
 
Timothy A said:
Fascinating. I don't want to dive into it myself. I'm torn. He's had 2 recruiting classes and a wide open portal for 2 years to improve the talent and apparently has not; or his staff is so bad that the improved talent is being wasted. I suppose firing Longo bought him another couple years. As we see in hockey with the portal, not everyone you bring in meshes with what you have or want to do and with some guys who left, the grass is not always greener on the other side. The difference is in FB they get spring and summer practices and a long fall official practice period. Hockey gets 2 weeks of official practice, then the games. It's nuts.
Click to expand...

agreed. I’m torn as well. I think some of the anti-Fickell crowd were anti-Fickell from the jump because they’re pissed Leonhard didn’t get the job. The other people have now been swayed by 2 years of results or lack thereof and the alums who are quite vocal on social media.

i buy the notion the team hasn’t improved or in games doesn’t make adjustments, etc.

however I also understand Fickell inherited a cupboard that was quite bare and that’s not his fault. The d-line is atrocious as are most of the linebackers. QB is terrible etc. unfortunately the portal is not the answer for football. Bball yes, because 1-2 guys can make a huge difference but football you need guys to grow into the systems and learn them backwards and forwards.

it’s tough because Alvarez had a vision and made sure his assistants shared that vision and he ran off like 30+ players his first season.

I think the alums want that.

Fickell is a CEO coach like Bobby Bowden so he needs to get his OC and DC squared away and they run the show with minimal interference.

i guess I don’t have a strong opinion on either style but to watch in real time ex-players go off (even basketball guys like Ben Brust “I never connected with Fickell from the first press conference”) and then seeing the parents of current and soon-to-be signees chime in and tell them to stop has been fascinating. I’ve never seen this before in 40+ years of watching sports
 
Needless to say, best effort in a very long time. Let's see this continue tomorrow for Pavelski. Play like this will carry you a long way this season.
 
Best they have looked all season. I have Saturday tickets, and I worry about a split, but would have taken it going into the weekend.
 
Overall a positive Weekend. Too bad they couldn’t tonight for Joe but MSU is a hell of a good team.

sucks that Stramel was part of the gwg.
 
solovsfett said:
Overall a positive Weekend. Too bad they couldn’t tonight for Joe but MSU is a hell of a good team.

sucks that Stramel was part of the gwg.
Click to expand...

Game felt pretty even overall. Unfortunate mistakes lead to both MSU goals. A simple off the boards tap to Horbach clears the puck and negates the Stramel power play goal. Mehlenbacher turning the puck over at our blue line puts a cheating up Dexheimer in a really poor spot and MSU gets a mini breakaway goal.

3v3 needs a lot of work. We did get another OT breakaway that we were unable to score (again, happened x2 last weekend too), but there is no semblance of puck control with all the space in the world. The whole point of 3v3 is to maintain puck control, get the opposition tired and unable to change, change to fresh players while the other team cannot, and then capitalize. Watch what Minnesota did to us in overtime. They executed how a team should play overtime to perfection.
 
I thought they would complete the sweep and the wheels came off. Unfortunate. Still improvement and Friday they controlled the #1 team in the country for most of the game. I was hoping for 7-8 points out of 12 over these two weekends. They can still attain that with a win and tie. Then the push in the second half to be playing their best hockey towards the Big7 playoffs.
 
It really sucked to lose Saturday. They basically won the first four periods of the weekend and then lost the last three. For as many times as they've played overtime they sure as heck better have figured out how to play that better. Of course you don't score on a breakaway in it or, you're asking for trouble.

Some chatter in the newspaper about Tommy being injured for part of the year, so maybe he's finally rounding into physical form and we can expect better performances.
 
Yeah, thought Saturday's loss was unfortunate, and overtime does need to be better, but I didn't think the final two periods were terrible overall. I'm now very interested to see how the Michigan series goes, as I don't think Michigan is quite as good this year as in prior years, but they're certainly good regardless, and it will be a tougher road environment than some of the other series thus far (e.g. Penn State, Notre Dame)
 
UW student and hockey fan said:
Yeah, thought Saturday's loss was unfortunate, and overtime does need to be better, but I didn't think the final two periods were terrible overall. I'm now very interested to see how the Michigan series goes, as I don't think Michigan is quite as good this year as in prior years, but they're certainly good regardless, and it will be a tougher road environment than some of the other series thus far (e.g. Penn State, Notre Dame)
Click to expand...

I do wonder if Hastings is pushing them too much and they run out of gas the last couple periods of the weekend. Not sure, but I agree will be good to see how they look at Michigan.
 
Prev Weekend: Win 4-0, Loss 3-2 OT vs MSU

Record: 6-9-1 overall (4-5-2-4); 3-2-1-4 15 pts, 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] in Big7; Prev week (T-3[SUP]rd[/SUP]) (+1)
NOTE still multi-games more played – reality is they are 4[SUP]th[/SUP] to 5[SUP]th[/SUP]
USCHO Poll: 4 votes (T-31[SUP]st[/SUP]); n/r – no votes (n/r) (+1)
PWR: T-31[SUP]st[/SUP] of 64; 42 of 64 (+11)
RPI: 32 of 64; 43 of 64 (+11)
Scoring: 2.69 GPG (37[SUP]th[/SUP]); 2.64 GPG (35[SUP]th[/SUP]) (-2)
Defense: 2.62 GAPG (29[SUP]th[/SUP]); 2.79 GAPG (T-31[SUP]st[/SUP]) (+2)
Save %: .900 (T-38[SUP]th[/SUP] of 64); .891 (T-54[SUP]th[/SUP] of 64) (+16)
Power Play Rate: 23.21% (13 of 56) T-16[SUP]th[/SUP]; 21.15% (11 of 52) T-20[SUP]th[/SUP] (+4)
Penalty Kill Rate: 71.05% (27 of 38) 60[SUP]th[/SUP]; 72.22% (26 of 36) T-58[SUP]th[/SUP] (-2)
Penalty Min per Game (1st is worst): 5.56 (63[SUP]rd[/SUP] of 64); 6.07 (62[SUP]nd[/SUP] of 64) (+1)
Penalty Min (1[SUP]st[/SUP] is worst): 89 (62[SUP]nd[/SUP]); 85 (T-57[SUP]th[/SUP]) (+6)
Shorthanded Goals Scored; 0 (T-49[SUP]th[/SUP]); 0 (T-46[SUP]th[/SUP]) (-3)
Shorthanded Goals Allowed (1[SUP]st[/SUP] is worst): 1 (T-29[SUP]th[/SUP]); 1 (T-27[SUP]th[/SUP]) (+2)
Team Faceoff: 55.1% (4[SUP]th[/SUP]); 54.3% (8[SUP]th[/SUP]) (+4)
SOG taken: 548 (T-5[SUP]th[/SUP]); 491 (7[SUP]th[/SUP]) (+2)
Shooting %: 7.8% (53[SUP]rd[/SUP] of 64); 7.5% (55[SUP]th[/SUP] of 64) (+2)
SOG allowed (1[SUP]st[/SUP] is worst): 421 (40[SUP]th[/SUP]); 359 (43[SUP]rd[/SUP]) (+3)

This week: at Michigan Fri 12/13 5 pm (BTN); Sat 12/14 6 pm (B1G+)
After that: Off until Kwik Trip Holiday Face-off on 12/28 and 12/29 (Ferris St and UConn/Alaska)

Improvements in areas, not in others. Power play has looked really good recently. Penalty kill is a disaster right now. Good thing they are 2nd in the country in penalty minutes per game. Scoring still is an issue, but there seems to be overall improvement week to week. Can they put it all together this weekend?
 
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