WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

The easy road is now done, the Badgers are back to climbing the mountain to finish the seaon w/ the only "easy" games left against Bemidji and Penn St.

Good to see them take four points this weekend, but I feel they won a game they didn't deserve to on saturday. The team was sloppy and UAA gave a much better effort than friday. Peterson and Rumpel give the team a chance to win every night, hopefully that continues and the offense improves. Jefferson Dahl had a nice effort, he might need to really step up if Derek Lee is out for awhile.

Still hopeful, which is an amazing place to be compared to 2 months ago.

THERE AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH!!!

Feel really good about Dahl, really bad about Lee. With Sue's slipping lately we're either catching them at a great time or a terrible time. Hey- I should be charging for this kind of analysis! (Instead of paying for analysis...) We can't turn it over with weak passing in our end next week like we did Saturday or Sue will make us pay. (Yeah, she's that kind of girl.)

Elsewhere, I believe it's time to start rooting for UMD. If the 'dogs can win 7 of their last 12 they will be a TUC which would help Bucky. And we need all the help we can get. NMU needs only 4 of their last 9 to remain a TUC at the end of the regular season.

The ship is turned, now let's see it get up the mountain!

 

[icebadger]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

I know at least some of this has been posted, apologies if it all has been. Re: Next year's opponents

4 games each vs Mich, Mich St, Minny, Ohio St, and Penn St + the non-con games as follows:


Home
UAH (2)
UAA (2)
CC (2)
LSSU (2)
NMU (2)


Away
Miami (2)
BC (1)
BU (1)

Also, sounds like UND will be back on the schedule in 2014-15.

Link

 

[Timothy A]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

He sat out a long stretch last season after the concussion he suffered in North Dakota. I don't think he returned until the WCHA playoffs.

Crap. I'm worried, the hit didn't seem too violent (we've all seen worse hits to the head), but he went down right away. I'm thinking he's out for a while. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

I know at least some of this has been posted, apologies if it all has been. Re: Next year's opponents

4 games each vs Mich, Mich St, Minny, Ohio St, and Penn St + the non-con games as follows:


Home
UAH (2)
CC (2)
LSSU (2)
NMU (2)


Away
Miami (2)
BC (1)
BU (1)

Also, sounds like UND will be back on the schedule in 2014-15.

Link

I had Tech in my notes and not Alabama Huntsville but those things change and I'm sure Baggot got it from the inside so I doubt it's inaccurate.

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Crap. I'm worried, the hit didn't seem too violent (we've all seen worse hits to the head), but he went down right away. I'm thinking he's out for a while. I hope I'm wrong.

A lot of times we see injury from sudden deceleration of the head into the boards or the ice, which we don't have here, but in re-watching it a few times and seeing the speed with which his head snaps around... I agree, it doesn't look very promising.

 

[dggoddard]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Here is the original angle.

Hopefully Lee is OK. UAA player should be suspended for two games, despite obvious lack of intent to injure.

The reason why this play is so dangerous and Lee is probably very lucky he wasn't hurt worse is because he's skating with his head down as he's looking for the puck. Exact same way Jesse Martin broke his neck.

You just don't see as many of these type of "blow up" hits in the NHL. Four potential factors are at play here.

1). Faceguards causing false security
2). Lack of heads up ability of the puck handlers
3). Poor decision by the checker to use shoulder
4). Younger, smaller, not as strong players in college vs pros

If and when another injury worse than Jesse's occurs, this is the most likely way it will happen. Far more collision force in a player to player impact that hitting any board, wall or glass.

 

[icebadger]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Crap. I'm worried, the hit didn't seem too violent (we've all seen worse hits to the head), but he went down right away. I'm thinking he's out for a while. I hope I'm wrong.

A large part of the severity of a hit's effects are whether or not you saw it coming. In this case, what otherwise might have been a mild, yet still illegal, hit has far more serious consequences.

 

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

I know at least some of this has been posted, apologies if it all has been. Re: Next year's opponents

4 games each vs Mich, Mich St, Minny, Ohio St, and Penn St + the non-con games as follows:


Home
UAH (2)
CC (2)
LSSU (2)
NMU (2)


Away
Miami (2)
BC (1)
BU (1)

Also, sounds like UND will be back on the schedule in 2014-15.

Link

I think UAA is on the list too from the article at home.

What I'm really interested in next year's schedule is how many (if any) non friday/saturday series UW is stuck with. If they are on the road I could really care less, but a Thurs/Fri or Sun/Mon home series is not appealling to me. I doubt I'll be going to the monday Penn State game next month.

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Eaves said earlier today that Lee passed his cognitive test. Still has some headaches. All in all good news. Also Wittchow is ready to go, as well as Little.

 

[SatNightFever]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

I agree, that is about as good a news as we could have hoped for for Lee....but even if he is feeling better, I am not sure I want him going against Hakstol's goons up at the Ralph. Not a fan....

Also agree on the need for Fri-Sat series....I can live with the Thur-Fri (I have Sat tix, hence the name), but Sun-Mon vs PSU is gross. Can't swing that trip.

Also, those of you that are regulars probably know this, so I apologize for the "repeat question", but when the B10 starts net year, are we doing the shootout after OT like the CCHA? What are everyone's thoughts on that....

Thanks all....

 

[Badgerice]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Has anyone figured out who has the easiest/hardest remaining schedule moving forward. It's nice that Bucky only has two road trips remaining as long as they take care of business at home.

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Has anyone figured out who has the easiest/hardest remaining schedule moving forward. It's nice that Bucky only has two road trips remaining as long as they take care of business at home.

In terms of WCHA play? Despite being at home for most of the remaining games, Wisconsin has one of the toughest remaining schedules in terms of opponents winning percentage. Second hardest to only North Dakota I believe (of teams in the top 7-8 that have a chance at winning the league).

Also, those of you that are regulars probably know this, so I apologize for the "repeat question", but when the B10 starts net year, are we doing the shootout after OT like the CCHA? What are everyone's thoughts on that....

There has been no indication either way on this front. I personally love shootouts, but I know that a lot of people here despise them.

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

I agree, that is about as good a news as we could have hoped for for Lee....but even if he is feeling better, I am not sure I want him going against Hakstol's goons up at the Ralph. Not a fan....

Pfft... Any Badger could have three concussions, a broken leg, and shrapnel from the Tupac shooting lodged next to his heart, and still take anything Sue can dish out!


I'm confident Eaves is particularly careful with concussions, especially given his own history. If Lee is cleared he'll be ready. If not, it will be time for Jefferson Dahl to shine.

 

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Has anyone figured out who has the easiest/hardest remaining schedule moving forward. It's nice that Bucky only has two road trips remaining as long as they take care of business at home.

I did some quick math using the number of points each WCHA team has currently earned and then created an average "points earned" per series remaining. I could have used winning % too, but this is specific to WCHA play, and it is all relative anyway. Just something to give us an idea. The higher the number means the harder the opponents left.

1 - Bemidji State - 22 pts/series
2 -UW - 21.2 pts/series
3 - Duluth - 20.2
4 - North Dakota - 19.6
5 - minnesota - 19.4
6 - Tech - 18.2
7 - UAA - 17.75
8 - Mankato - 17.25
9 - Denver - 17
10 - St Cloud - 16.8
10 - CC - 16.8
12 - UNO - 15.8

Couple observations:

UNO and St Cloud have the easiest road to winning the last WCHA title under the current configuration of the league. UNO's only top half of the league series left are against UW and NoDak, and both are in Omaha. UW has a tough last five series playing against the current top 4 teams in the league and then Bemidji. We'll see what the Badgers are made of starting friday night in the wasteland that is named Grand Forks.

 

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Interesting. Of course after Bucky Manhandles Sue, Wallys the Beavs, and Exterminates the Rodents, UNO will go right to the top of the list.

 

[Almington]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Interesting. Of course after Bucky Manhandles Sue, Wallys the Beavs, and Exterminates the Rodents, UNO will go right to the top of the list.

Might just be me, but I think that many are underestimating the importance of the SCSU series. From a PWR perspective, the UMN games are the LEAST important (even with a sweep of MN, UW will be unable to flip that comparison without beating them at the F5 and even then it is unlikely). A sweep of SCSU and UND is necessary but not sufficient to flip those comparisons but without a sweep (or at least 3pt weekends) I doubt that UW will be able to flip either comparison (as both teams win all three of the comparisons against UW currently). As things set, UW needs to flip about 10 of the 21 PWR comparisons that they are not currently winning to be safely in the range to get an at large bid and with some help (and UW winning) it is completely possible.

 

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Might just be me, but I think that many are underestimating the importance of the SCSU series. From a PWR perspective, the UMN games are the LEAST important (even with a sweep of MN, UW will be unable to flip that comparison without beating them at the F5 and even then it is unlikely). A sweep of SCSU and UND is necessary but not sufficient to flip those comparisons but without a sweep (or at least 3pt weekends) I doubt that UW will be able to flip either comparison (as both teams win all three of the comparisons against UW currently). As things set, UW needs to flip about 10 of the 21 PWR comparisons that they are not currently winning to be safely in the range to get an at large bid and with some help (and UW winning) it is completely possible.

Looking at the PWR yesterday I was thinking the same thing. They can only flip a few comparisons close to them by just improving their RPI, they need to flip a few of the ones you mentioned by winning, which would then increase their RPI further winning a few more comparisons. Besides Bemidji, these are all TUC too, which would help that category.

It is very possible that UW gets home ice in the end and won't make the NCAA tourney w/ out winning the Final Five. I think a decent finish can get them home ice, but decent won't be good enough where it really matters. I've been looking for a PWR where you can change previous results and see what splits with NMU, CC and Mankato (at home) would have done for UW at this point. And that wasn't asking too much either earlier in the season.

 

[Almington]

Looking at the PWR yesterday I was thinking the same thing. They can only flip a few comparisons close to them by just improving their RPI, they need to flip a few of the ones you mentioned by winning, which would then increase their RPI further winning a few more comparisons. Besides Bemidji, these are all TUC too, which would help that category.

It is very possible that UW gets home ice in the end and won't make the NCAA tourney w/ out winning the Final Five. I think a decent finish can get them home ice, but decent won't be good enough where it really matters. I've been looking for a PWR where you can change previous results and see what splits with NMU, CC and Mankato (at home) would have done for UW at this point. And that wasn't asking too much either earlier in the season.

Home ice will likely require 8 to 10 more points in WCHA play. Making the NCAAs probably requires losing no more than 4 more game equivalents (tie is half a loss) including the wcha playoffs. Not much margin for error assuming one loss in the F5.

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Looking at the PWR yesterday I was thinking the same thing. They can only flip a few comparisons close to them by just improving their RPI, they need to flip a few of the ones you mentioned by winning, which would then increase their RPI further winning a few more comparisons. Besides Bemidji, these are all TUC too, which would help that category.

It is very possible that UW gets home ice in the end and won't make the NCAA tourney w/ out winning the Final Five. I think a decent finish can get them home ice, but decent won't be good enough where it really matters. I've been looking for a PWR where you can change previous results and see what splits with NMU, CC and Mankato (at home) would have done for UW at this point. And that wasn't asking too much either earlier in the season.

This website you can adjust past results, but for some reason it's been down recently.

http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2012/rankings.diy.shtml

 

[bucky15]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Random question to the gbpuckfan or anyone, have you seen Notre Dame play this year? I just saw some of there scores against what normally are strong teams. Do they have a overall solid team or some stand outs? Any D1 recruits?