After splitting the series with St. Cloud State and suffering its first loss of the season last weekend, the No. 2 Wisconsin women’s hockey team will look to rebound quickly against Minnesota State (1-2-1, 1-0-1 WCHA) this weekend.
The Badgers (6-1-1, 2-1-1 WCHA) lost 2-1 last Friday due to excellent goalkeeping by St. Cloud’s Kendall Newell and the inability of the UW offense to put the puck in the net during some easy goal-scoring opportunities.
“It seems that Kendall, the last couple times we have played against her, is getting close to 40 or 50 saves,” UW head coach Mark Johnson said. “When the puck is not going in, and you only get the one, it is going to be a close game. If you look at how we played, how many chances we created and how many opportunities we had to score, we actually played pretty well.”
The Badgers had much more success Saturday, managing to score five times on their way to a shutout victory. The match was highlighted by freshman forward Mallory Deluce’s first collegiate hat trick, and the line of Jinelle Zaugg, Deluce, and Hilary Knight accounted for all five goals.
When asked what he told his players after the loss that led to this dominating win, Johnson used fishing analogy.
“You have got to get the fish in the boat,” Johnson said. “You and I can go fishing, and we can talk about all of the ones that got away, how big they were and how impressive they were, but that is not going to impress me. In hockey, you have get the puck in the net.”
With Minnesota State in town for a two-game series this weekend, Wisconsin will look for a repeat of last Saturday’s high-scoring performance. The Badgers have had plenty of success against the Mavericks recently, beating them four times last year and outscoring them 22-2. The domination goes even farther back for Wisconsin, as the Badgers have gone 30-0-1 against the Mavericks over the past eight seasons. Despite all this success, the team still says Minnesota State will be a challenge.
“With the WCHA this year, we cannot take any opponent for granted,” Zaugg said. “Minnesota State is a great example of that. We cannot overlook any team. We have to come out and play our game and finish on our opportunities.”
“They are going to come out strong,” Deluce added. “All the teams are good in this league. You don’t want to take anyone lightly even if they don’t have a good record. We are just going to come out as hard as we can.”
To prepare for the Mavericks and to ensure that they don’t falter again, the Badgers have emphasized capitalizing on opportunities in practice this week.
“I think [Coach Johnson] is doing a little more on finishing,” Zaugg said. “There are a few more shooting drills, and we have been working on power plays. We had quite a few power plays on Friday, and we weren’t able to capitalize.”
If the Badgers are going to continue to have success, they will need their line of Zaugg, Deluce, and Knight to continue to light it up.
“Both Mallory and Hilary have become great players already,” Zaugg said. “Normally for freshmen, it takes a little bit to get used to regarding scoring and finishing on the chances they get, and I think they have done a great job with that. They are both really easy to work with.”
