Entering the weekend series with Minnesota State, the Wisconsin penalty kill was rolling, but the power play unit had some catching up to do.
Consider things even.
UW had gone just 2-of-25 on the man-advantage in its recent series with Colorado College, Denver and Minnesota Duluth. Although the Badgers emerged with a 3-2-1 record in that six-game stretch, a 0-for-5 performance in the second game against UMD resulted in UW’s first shutout of the season.
But starting with a 2-for-4 performance in the Camp Randall Hockey Classic and six power play goals in the series with Minnesota State, Wisconsin has converted at a 33 percent clip in its past three games.
Friday night, the Badgers fired 17 shots on goal in the first period and had nothing to show for it. UW also went 0-for-4 on the power play in the first and started 0-for-3 on the man-advantage to start the second, falling behind 1-0 on a Mike Louwerse goal.
“Because we didn’t execute, it didn’t take us out of our rhythm as much as we lost energy,” UW head coach Mike Eaves said. “We’ve talked in the past about power plays. Even if you don’t score on the power play, but you have puck control and you create chances, it builds energy. And because of our ineffectiveness early in the game on the power plays, we were losing energy on that.”
But at 15:35 of the second period, MSU’s Zach Harrison went off for interference and Kurt Davis was called for roughing, giving UW a 5-on-3 power play. Michael Davies put away a rebound to tie the game, and with one penalty still on the board, knocked a puck out of midair to put UW up 2-1 just 31 seconds later.
Davies would assist on a Blake Geoffrion goal to give the Badgers their third power play tally and UW finished 3-for-12 for the night.
“They did a pretty good job pressuring, obviously. The puck was on the boards a lot, we couldn’t get off the boards and get control of it,” Geoffrion said. “They did a good job on the battles early on. Once we got the puck off the wall and got it set up in the zone, broke out pretty good, we started getting chances.”
Saturday would prove to be less of a challenge with the man-advantage, as the Badgers went 3-for-8 en route to their 8-4 victory.
Once again, it was Davies who sparked the goals, as he laced a pass across the slot to a falling Geoffrion who scored to make it a 2-1 game. In the second period, Davies would later make a deke before skating to the goal line and threading a pass between two MSU defensemen to find Brendan Smith.
Defenseman Ryan McDonagh would get the third power play goal of the night off a nice feed in the high slot from John Mitchell.
And as impressive as it was to see the power play get rolling, the UW penalty kill also held up its end of the bargain, giving up just one power play goal in 13 MSU chances. After this weekend, the Badgers have given up just two power play goals in its last 31 opponents’ power plays.
As effective as the UW penalty kill has been in simply killing penalties, its ability to create offense while shorthanded has been a big part of its effectiveness. However, until this series, the Badgers had just two shorthanded goals to show for it, a number they doubled versus MSU.
It was Geoffrion that got the first assist on both of UW’s shorthanded goals, finding Aaron Bendickson Friday night and Jake Gardiner Saturday.
“We talked a lot about getting some chances when we’re shorthanded,” Geoffrion said. “The goal tonight, Bomber (Andy Bohmbach) made a heck of a play, to give me that pass. Those two defensemen went down two-on with them with Gards (Jake Gardiner) and he was able to bury. “We talked about getting a little more offense on the shorthanded aspect, because we’ve had chances that we just haven’t buried. It was nice to get that this weekend.”
Bohmbach made the pass to Geoffrion that led to Gardiner’s goal and said that overall, UW’s special teams were a big part of the victories.
“All around, our special teams was outstanding this weekend,” he said. “I thought the power play was awesome, and the penalty kill, we did a great job.”
Going into the stretch run, execution on the power play and penalty kill will be crucial to any hopes Wisconsin has about winning a national title.
With a hot team coming in next weekend in St. Cloud State, Eaves said this weekend’s performance on special teams was a big mental boost.
“It gives us confidence in those areas,” he said. “When it comes down to it at the end of the year we are going to talk about our goaltending and our special teams, and those type of things are going to put you over the edge in terms of winning some games.”
