Sports

Eaves’ gritty squad fights through midseason funk

Truth be told, the fourth-ranked Wisconsin men’s hockey team did not play its best hockey in this weekend’s sweep of No. 14 Minnesota-Duluth.

“We’re in a stage right now this season where we’re just in a little bit of a funk,” UW head coach Mike Eaves said. “Even the way we practiced, we just weren’t sharp all week. So, it was a test for us in terms of our team maturity in seeing how we handled a game in which things weren’t coming easy for us.”

Eaves’ young Badger squad passed the test Friday with a 3-2 victory in which it displayed plenty of grit and heart.

“I think it speaks to our character in the dressing room,” captain Adam Burish said. “The kind of guys that we have, the mentality that we have — that we understand when our game isn’t going right, that we understand the things we have to do to be successful.”

In a game devoid of any type of flow and in which both teams totaled the same number of shots on goal (25), Wisconsin was forced to revert to the basics and win with sheer effort and determination.

“Those games when the puck isn’t sticking on your stick and passes aren’t being crisp, you’ve got to get back to doing the hard things — putting the puck in deep, finishing your hits, and then that’s how you create your chances,” Burish said. “And that’s what we did.”

In Saturday’s 3-2 win, Wisconsin was once again not at the top of its game. Duluth out shot UW 25 to 18, but the Badgers were able to find a way to win for the second night in a row.

“I think it’s definitely a positive … good teams do find a way to win even when they’re not playing their A-game,” junior left wing Nick Licari said. “We can definitely build off of this weekend. We can look at the tape, take the good things, the bad things, and learn from it.”

For Duluth, the weekend sweep was a tough pill to swallow. Head coach Scott Sandelin didn’t believe his team was outplayed either night, yet still came out of the weekend empty-handed. The Bulldogs’ offensive struggles continued, a surprising deficiency for a team that scored 29 goals in the season’s first six games.

Eaves is hopeful of his team’s ability to break out of its recent “funk,” something that he thinks UW is not alone in facing.

“Watching our team play and practice, I don’t think we were fully at our top level, for whatever reason,” Eaves said. “As I said, every team goes through this. The important thing is that these young men dealt with it in a positive way and got the job done.”

The Badgers will need to keep working hard and play through their struggles next weekend when they travel to Minnesota State-Mankato.

“It’s mostly step by step, day by day,” sophomore left wing Robbie Earl said after Friday’s game. “I think every team goes through a funk like this during the season. I think what we did tonight, we struggled a little bit, just from how we practiced, and we were ready for the game, but mentally we weren’t. We won the game, but we won it by the lucky bounces. I think we just have to take it day by day, and then we’ll kind of get out of it.”