In its series against North Dakota this weekend, the Wisconsin women’s hockey team featured a somewhat unfamiliar lineup of backups and role players. While the Badgers clearly dominated the series, winning both games by a combined 12 goals, they did so without their usual cast of characters.
Mark Johnson’s squad was without standout forward Lindsay Macy for disciplinary reasons, and senior defender Carla MacLeod missed Sunday’s game to travel to Canada for a tryout with the Canadian Olympic team.
Instead, the Badgers got help from players like Phoebe Monteleone, Emily Morris and Vicki Davis. These were players who had seen limited playing time this season and had not even dressed for games at times.
“It helps their confidence,” head coach Mark Johnson said of his players’ increased playing time. “Obviously Vicki and Phoebe haven’t had the ice time of some of the other players. We had people step up that needed to step up and help us make a big contribution to a good team.”
With the increased playing time, many of these role players stepped into the spotlight with breakout performances. Freshman Morris notched her third goal of the season Friday night, while Monteleone got her third on Saturday. Sophomore forward Meaghan Mikkelson scored two goals in the series, but the biggest surprise was the play of Davis, a transfer from the University of New Hampshire and a sophomore forward with only four assists to her name. Along with scoring her first goal as a Badger Friday night, she tallied an assist and another goal, Saturday’s game winner, for three points on the weekend.
“For me this has been one of the most fun weekends,” Davis said. “Partly because I actually contributed a little bit and, other than that, because everyone had something to do with it, and everyone got to dress.”
With the absence of Macy, and with a relatively weak UND squad in town, Johnson played around with some different lines and matchups. The vaunted line of Sara Bauer, Sharon Cole and Macy was split up for most of the weekend, except when forward Amy Vermeulen played with Cole and Bauer for a few shifts Friday night, and there were points when no two lines were ever consistent during the weekend. The mixing and matching seemed to work, however, as the Badgers put up 14 goals against the Fighting Sioux.
“I think it was just sort of experimenting,” MacLeod said of the mixed lines. “In that sort of game, you can try those sorts of things, so that’s what he [Johnson] was doing, which was I think having a little fun and seeing how we would react.”
The fact that so many different players made the most of the opportunities they received this weekend bolsters an already deep Badger squad. Wisconsin has the unique ability to produce goals from almost any line it puts on the ice, a position that should be advantageous for a team looking to make the Frozen Four.
