Brückler, UW Face High-Scoring Bulldogs
by David Klein, Men’s Hockey Writer
The Wisconsin men’s hockey team will wrap up its impressive regular season when it faces off against the No. 5 Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs at the Kohl Center this weekend.
The fourth-ranked Badgers (14-6-6 WCHA, 20-9-7 overall), led by Bernd Brückler and his sparkling .927 save percentage, boast the WCHA’s top defense, but they will be going up against the conference’s highest-scoring team in Minnesota-Duluth.
The Bulldogs’ offense hit a speed bump last week against North Dakota, as the club managed only two goals (and no wins) in the series, but UMD still leads the WCHA in scoring, averaging 4.35 goals per game in conference play.
Minnesota-Duluth (18-7-1 WCHA, 22-10-3 overall) has four players averaging over a point a game on the season, which is four more than UW can claim.
Senior forward Junior Lessard has led the way for the Bulldogs, putting up 21 goals and 45 points in 35 games this year, and linemates Evan Schwabe and Tyler Brosz, with 39 and 38 points respectively, are not far behind.
Of primary concern to UW should be Minnesota-Duluth’s power play, which has converted close to 30 percent of its opportunites.
Four Bulldogs (Lessard, Schwabe, Brosz and Tim Stapleton) have as many man-advantage goals (19) as the entire Wisconsin team, and UMD’s team total of 36 power play goals is nearly twice as many as the Badgers’.
While UW’s penalty kill has stopped the bleeding in the past couple of weeks, killing 15 of 16 power plays, it is still a sore spot for the club, so Wisconsin will have to be disciplined and stay out of the box in order to keep things close.
All the statistical evidence supports the conclusion that the Badgers cannot win a shoot-out with Minnesota-Duluth. Instead, they will have to rely on their defense, which has been excellent of late, allowing only two goals in the team’s past four contests.
Brückler, whose candidacy for WCHA Player of the Year and even the Hobey Baker Award is starting to gain momentum, deserves plenty of credit, but Wisconsin’s strong defensive play has been a true team effort.
Ryan Suter and Tom Gilbert have emerged as a solid No. 1 defensive pairing, and head coach Mike Eaves can feel confident matching them up with the top line of any team in the conference, if not the country.
In addition, the Badgers have increasingly played towards their strengths of defense and goaltending in recent weeks, making the safe pass, avoiding turnovers, funneling opposing players away from the prime scoring areas and clearing rebounds quickly.
That kind of conservative defensive philosophy requires that the team’s goaltender does not allow soft goals and makes big saves on the rare occasions they are necessary, and Brückler has held up his end of the bargain on both counts, helping Wisconsin to go undefeated (5-0-1) in its last six games.
In fact, UW’s sweep of Alaska-Anchorage last weekend, coupled with St. Cloud State dropping both of its decisions against Colorado College assured the Badgers a finish of no worse than third in the WCHA with the possibility of climbing higher.
A sweep of Minnesota-Duluth would vault UW into second place in the conference.
The Bulldogs held the top spot in the WCHA heading into their series last weekend against North Dakota, but after losing both games (at home) to the Fighting Sioux, UMD currently sits in second place, with 37 points to North Dakota’s 39.
The Fighting Sioux face lowly Michigan Tech this week, so in all likelihood, they will hang onto first place in the WCHA.
If the Badgers can sweep Minnesota-Duluth at the Kohl Center, they will finish second. Any other result and they will finish third.
Most importantly, however, this series represents a chance for Wisconsin to keep up the positive momentum it has generated over the past few weeks going into the conference tournament.
UW could make a major statement by shutting down one of the top offenses in the country, and the team’s play in recent weeks suggests that is not all that improbable.