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Wisconsin Hockey 25-26 Hastings Year 3 - Turning the Corner?

GoBucky18 said:
If they play EXTREMELY well, 3-3 with a Big 10 Tourney win is probably the top of the ceiling. I think that gets them a 10-15 seed the NCAAs. But don't know, speculation has gotten us nowhere. But, who knows really. I'm going to watch and hopefully they understand the cage they are in now.

I think it's though is night and day that they are MUCH better than under Granato from the fundamentals perspective (esp defense). But this might be the wall for Hastings in terms of you HAVE to have high end scorers and legit talent. Those are two things he never had really at Mankato, mostly because it wasn't even a possibility to attract those type of players. He had to do it with development and goalie play, and to be blunt, they weren't playing top 15 teams each weekend in conference play. Bigger fish in a little pond type situation in Mankato.

The further we get, the more it stings to have lost Stramel and Whitelaw, purely from a talent POV.
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I agree on talent. They need more pure goal scorers. Losing Stramel is on the coaching staff. Nightingale isn’t a soft coach to play for so I wish I knew WHY Hastings and staff practically pushed Stramel out???

Whitelaw didn’t belong at UW. Dude has jumped more schools than Star Wars shows have jumped sharks!!!

But defense to me is atrocious. And it’s been that way for Most of Hasting’s time here. Even after allowing so many back door goals this season I saw numerous ND players all alone ready to tap it in if they received the pass.

And the goalies are allowing ridiculously soft goals. That HAS to be on the goalie coach. Even after Howie was pushed out UW still had a couple of guys that played well. This group has been bad all season. I can’t name a single game the oat 3 seasons where goaltending won them the game like Richter, CUJO, Carey, Elliott, Derksen, Daubenspeck and Valley did on several occasions.
 
solovsfett said:
This group has been bad all season. I can’t name a single game the oat 3 seasons where goaltending won them the game like Richter, CUJO, Carey, Elliott, Derksen, Daubenspeck and Valley did on several occasions.
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Last two seasons sure, the goaltending has been pretty bad. And yeah, coaching may be an issue there. But McClellan in 23-24 was arguably the best goalie in the country.
 
Because I needed to see the numbers myself:

Granato vs Hastings Each of First 3 Years to date (macro stats):

Record:48-52-1056-42-7Average:
Save Percent:.885/.884/.890.928/.888/.884.886 vs .900
Power Play:21.5/18.8/16.719.7/22.1/29.419 vs 23.73
Penalty Kill:84.5/79.7/74.387.2/81.8/72.579.5 vs 80.5
Goals/Given Up:3.39/3.28, 3.11/3.35, 3.05/3.513.2/2.03, 2.92/2.97, 3.79/3.113.18/3.38 vs 3.3/2.70
Penalty Mins:11.69/13.05/13.9510.3/9.16/14.6112.9 vs 11.35

Quick Takeaways:

Yes, goalie play is better, but the trend is bad.
Power Play is a plus, esp this year.
Penalty kill was outstanding the 1st year, and has been abysmal this year. Trend bad.
Goals and Goals given up: Scoring is about even. They both faced an inability to score goals, but Hastings D clearly gives up less than Granato's teams did. Scoring, I'd have to see some advanced metrics for scoring time/place/location to correct for things like Empty Net Goals, OT, etc. Giving up quality goals is one thing, it's the D breakdown or bad goaltending misses that are the real story there.
Penalty Mins: The fact that they have won this many games at 14.61 PIM/game is crazy. If they want to go 3-3 and have a shot, it's gotta be in the 10 or less arena. But, I also would consider correcting for penalties that mean nothing like end of game penalties and when there's scrums and it's all offsetting rubbish with only two guys actually serving a penalty.

Again, to me it's the scoring that matters the most. The teams that are a threat to hang 5+ credibly every night are going to be the best teams in the league and nation. It's just where the game is now.

Maybe I'll look at the top 2 finishers in the Big 10 and the top 4 seeds of the tourney over the last 5 years to see where we sit. I can tell you, it probably doesn't look pretty though.
 
solovsfett said:
Nightingale isn’t a soft coach to play for so I wish I knew WHY Hastings and staff practically pushed Stramel out???
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Agree 100%, I've had the opportunity to meet him a couple times and been around their program a couple times. MSU was in the desert, and Nightingale completely turned that program into a juggernaut. It's not like Munn is some cathedral or beautiful arena either. But, they renovated a TON for the players, don't have to worry about a women's team in the athletic dept, and he runs a freakin tight ship.

In my humble opinion, we need to be at that same level MSU is at. They RARELY have fundamental issues and are relatively clean in terms of how they play, and they don't beat themselves.
 
solovsfett said:
I agree on talent. They need more pure goal scorers. Losing Stramel is on the coaching staff. Nightingale isn’t a soft coach to play for so I wish I knew WHY Hastings and staff practically pushed Stramel out???

Whitelaw didn’t belong at UW. Dude has jumped more schools than Star Wars shows have jumped sharks!!!

But defense to me is atrocious. And it’s been that way for Most of Hasting’s time here. Even after allowing so many back door goals this season I saw numerous ND players all alone ready to tap it in if they received the pass.

And the goalies are allowing ridiculously soft goals. That HAS to be on the goalie coach. Even after Howie was pushed out UW still had a couple of guys that played well. This group has been bad all season. I can’t name a single game the oat 3 seasons where goaltending won them the game like Richter, CUJO, Carey, Elliott, Derksen, Daubenspeck and Valley did on several occasions.
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Agree with most of this. Defending the back side has been bad. And they give up to many odd man rushes due to D trying to be offensive. And I don't think they are physical / nasty enough to opposing players in the house.

Stramel, I have no idea, but he does PK and seems to work hard in the defensive zone. He was a big loss. And he seems like a good guy and teammate too. Not sure what the deal was there. Maybe him and Hastings just didn't hit it off.

But, Hauser had some great games earlier in the year. He has struggled of late, but he has kept them in some games too. Saturday night on fill in duty, he was good. He's small so they are going to have more space at the top of the net. Nothing you can do about that. I had heard he was a NHL prospect on skill, but because he was so small he wasn't. Is Murdock the right guy for the goalies? I won't say yes or no, as that is Hastings job, but they have sure struggled in the second half. Confidence seems to be down.
 
WiscTJK said:
Analysis they need to get 6 this weekend to have a chance at NCAA: https://x.com/USCHO/status/2022325547137675696

It's do or die.
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Wow…I would love to see this team actually compete with tOSU but the *uckeyes own UW right now. Rohlik gets the most out of his players. They play a solid, mature game which showed last weekend.

On the flip side…did UW at least get their offensive mojo back last weekend? We’ll see in a few hours.
 
digitalbooya said:
Does Wisconsin have the resources that those teams have? I don’t think so.

Someone tell me what is said in this article: https://x.com/toddmilewski/status/2020902816437473682?s=46&t=ifZBfg8uEraP-bFzu2jk4w
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They damn well better have the resources for hockey that all 3 of those schools have. There is 0 excuse not to have the same or even higher budgets for UW hockey considering it’s long and storied history.

And it Wasn’t that long ago that an audit revealed they had something like 9-digit millions in the coffers.
 
solovsfett said:
They damn well better have the resources for hockey that all 3 of those schools have. There is 0 excuse not to have the same or even higher budgets for UW hockey considering it’s long and storied history.

And it Wasn’t that long ago that an audit revealed they had something like 9-digit millions in the coffers.
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History doesn't mean anything when it comes to the current state of resources at the university.
 
Hauser out hurt after OSU guy falls on him. Per radio, he reinjured his shoulder earlier in 2026 (injury from last year). I’m sure wondering if that’s why he has been slower and tentative in the second half. Castro didn’t dress but is now on the bench as the backup
 
Badgers break the curse in the house of horrors on Friday the 13th. Has the abyss been traversed? If Hauser is out I don't have much faith in Pulver. He looks like he forgot how to play goalie sometimes.
 
Big win. Needed that. Not happy about Hauser. I didn't listen to the post game and don't know if he will be available. Quick Hits for me:

1. Their will to beat OSU to pucks and dig them out to create possession for about 85% of the game was palpable. It's about time.
2. There wasn't a single goal scored outside of 5ft. I was happy with the forwards finally crashing and capitalizing.
3. Hauser played great, and the D stepped up for Pulver, but I am always concerned about how out of position he gets when he slides and is slow to recover.
4. Rally tomorrow, and play with the same energy. I don't think OSU had a single odd man rush, and their forecheck, neutral zone defense was on point.
 
solovsfett said:
Why does that matter? None of the schools spend that much on hockey no matter how much they have saved up. The point is Wisconsin can and should comepete with them in hockey funding AND results. No excuses.
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I agree, Wisconsin can and should compete in terms of resources....but do they want to?

We also need to look in the mirror at the fact that the hockey program carried WI through the 70s and 80s when it was in absolute shambles. Their red badge of courage since the 90s has always been that the Athletic Dept is self sufficient and that it did not need the University outside of major funraising (facilities initiatives). Self sufficient and facilities don't matter anymore, and if the Athletic Department is going to keep that funding wall (badge of courage up) between the Dept and the University, especially considering that major boosters/donors are needed for NIL, it's not going to be pretty.

We all hate it, but the college hockey game is all about talent now, and who can attract it via the portal and NIL. Just a fact. I don't like it either. Wisconsin somehow likes to self-flagellate and pronounce it to the world about how virtuous they are while they get their doors blown off. I think NCAA basketball is one are that has an equalizer in just plain good coaching and development bc of the crapshoot that is the NCAA Tourney.
 
Sorry, I'm on a soap box. I know the McClain center was badly outdated, but that should have happened in the 2000's. The fundraising campaign for Kellner Center was $100M. That's $100M going into facilities, that to be blunt aren't really going to be leveraged by hockey or basketball bc of Kohl Center. However, that's $100M of donor money and $185M of university money going to facilities...that will have negligble impact on hockey.

Men's hockey really needs a whale to step up and specifically push NIL for Wisconsin...the top facilities for the athletes are already in place.
 
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