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Nothing special about UW power play
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Also by Kevin Hagstrom:
- Family comes 1st for ex-Badger WR (December 11, 2007)
- Nothing special about UW power play (December 10, 2007)
- Confident UW squad faces off against Minnesota State (December 7, 2007)
- Sophomores to play for U.S.A. (December 6, 2007)
- Hill of a pickle for UW tailback (December 5, 2007)
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- Special teams power Badger victory over Lakers (October 18, 2004)
- Forecheck sparks Badger success (February 19, 2007)
- UW's Border Battle rages on (October 20, 2006)
- UW relying on special teams (October 30, 2006)
by Kevin Hagstrom
Monday, December 10, 2007
MANKATO, Minn. — By the end of the series between Wisconsin
and Minnesota State, the term "special teams" seemed to have lost its meaning.
In both Friday's 3-1 loss and Saturday's 1-1 tie, Wisconsin
was nonexistent with the man-advantage.
"If you look at the flat line of the game — the breakdown —
special teams was the difference," UW head coach Mike Eaves said.
The Badgers managed just one power play goal on 14
opportunities to put a damper on what the team had hoped would be a productive
weekend heading into winter break.
Of late, the unit hasn't exactly been stellar. Not since the
Robert Morris series in mid-October have the Badgers scored more than two power
play goals in a game and have gone just 4-of-39, 10.3 percent, in their last 10
games.
Special teams, however, was particularly costly Friday.
UW failed to score on any of its five chances, including two
extended 5-on-3s.
"Those are huge, and we want to at least get one [goal] out
of them," Wisconsin defenseman Kyle Klubertanz said. "If we capitalize on one
or two there, it's a different game."
Perhaps the most mindboggling result of all wasn't that the
Badgers failed to score with the two-man advantage for over three minutes later
in the game, it was that the Mavericks looked, during those penalty kills, as
though they were playing at even strength. Wisconsin simply was out of sync.
"We missed one-time shots, we missed passes, and those are
the details that hurt us in the power play," Eaves said.
Joel Hanson, R.J. Linder and Jon Kalinski had everything to
do with Wisconsin's struggles with the man-advantage, according to Minnesota
State head coach Troy Jutting.
"I think Jon Kalinski is the best penalty killer in the
league," Jutting said.
"They did their job on penalty kills — nothing special — but
we have to find a way to get around that and score," said UW freshman Kyle
Turris, who had two points on the weekend.
If not scoring on the power play wasn't frustrating enough
for Wisconsin, its penalty kill got snake-bitten as well. While it only gave up
one goal, it came at an inopportune time, both in the game and on the kill.
With MSU leading 2-1 in the second period, MSU's Rylan
Galiardi flipped the puck past UW goaltender Shane Connelly off a rebound with
just 12 seconds remaining on the man-advantage. This came just three minutes
after the Mavericks broke a 1-1 tie as another power play was expiring.
"We do all that work for two minutes to block shots and work
our guys out, and if they put one in at the end there, it's tough," Klubertanz
said.
The focus put into improving on special teams from Friday
night's game to Saturday paid off, but not before five more opportunities went
to waste.
Finally, early in the third period, defenseman Jaime McBain
put what would eventually be the game-tying goal past MSU goaltender Mike
Zacharias.
"We've been getting the chances, now we finally got the
production out of it," McBain said of his goal.
Wisconsin got one more 5-on-3 opportunity toward the end of
the third period, but it could not come away with a goal, despite hitting the
post on one shot and controlling the puck in MSU's zone for much of the power
play.
While it was yet another missed opportunity, Eaves felt that
the quality of shots and the movement on that two-man advantage was a step in
the right direction.
"Every time we had a 5-on-3, it was a missed opportunity,"
Eaves said. "We had a better idea of what we wanted to do and unless you score,
you're thinking it wasn't a very good 5-on-3, but we made them make some saves
and we had people in the right spots and doing the right things. We just
couldn't get the puck in the net."
Adjustments were also made on the penalty kill. Minnesota
State finished 0-of-5 with the man-advantage, thanks in large part to a great
game by Connelly, McBain said.
"He was on tonight," he said. "He kept us in the game when
we needed it and was rock-solid back there."
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