ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Hope springs eternal for Mike Eaves.
After a sweep by St. Cloud State that left Wisconsin 0-5-1 in the month of February, there are not many reasons to be optimistic about his hockey team.
Following UW’s 7-3 loss Saturday night, Badger players and coaches held a closed-door team meeting. The captains met with their teammates and then with the coaches before all three groups convened for one final discussion.
The volume of the discussion at the end seemed to indicate this could be a breaking point for this team.
But Wisconsin’s head coach had a different view of things.
“Oh, it’s not a crisis. It’s an opportunity,” Eaves said. “We went through the same thing with the ’06 team. It’s part of the process of a team coming together.”
He added that the players made a list of priorities to work on, which they’re keeping internal.
Eaves said he isn’t surprised about the Badgers’ extended slump. Rather, he explained, it’s something that inevitably happens to teams.
“Every team, whether you watch the NBA or the National Hockey League, every team goes through it over the course of the season. And it’s how you handle it, what you get out of those moments and how you try to right your ship,” Eaves said. “This is a big growth opportunity for this team and this coaching staff to right the ship and grow as a group.”
But last year’s team that played for the national title never went through such an extended rough patch. Instead, that group finished the season as the only team to never lose consecutive games.
So now, with just one regular season series left, the Badgers are in a precarious position. Wisconsin started the month within five points of the league lead and has since slipped from fourth to seventh place and out of home ice for the playoffs. A sweep of Colorado College – the Tigers are one point ahead of the Badgers in the standings – is the only way for UW to guarantee it doesn’t start the postseason on the road.
But Eaves pointed out things are still in the Badgers’ hands and that everything starts over once the playoffs begin – and most importantly, that Wisconsin is not in desperation mode.
“We may end up not.. being at home, I don’t know what will happen, we may go on the road and run the table. You don’t know. You just don’t know,” Eaves said. “You can label the situation with the words you want, but I’m going to rephrase them because I’ve lived through it and I know that they’re opportunities.”
His evidence? The 2006 team that won the national title. Those Badgers were swept at Minnesota State-Mankato near the end of February, leading to a similar players meeting.
Eaves also wasn’t afraid to make a bold statement concerning that team.
“If that didn’t happen with Mankato with that ’06 team, we don’t win [the national title]. Guaranteed,” he said. “Why? Because the team took the reins at that time.”
If there was ever a time to retake control of the season, this is it. As of now, the Badgers would not make the 16-team field in the NCAA tournament, a stark turnaround from the squad that began the month tied for the national lead in wins.
It would be easy – understandable, for sure – to assume the team is panicking. But Eaves’ glass is half-full, even if it appears to be leaking.
“Sometimes, when you go through stuff like this, what seems a negative becomes a positive,” he said.
