Wisconsin men’s hockey co-captain and senior forward Brad Navin is tied for ninth on the team in points, yet has still contributed as much to the Badgers as any other player this season.

Navin has been faced with the challenge of keeping a team together in the midst of its worst season ever. The Badgers’ 25 losses this year are the most in a season in program history.

Throughout Wisconsin’s struggles this season, head coach Mike Eaves has commended his team leaders, like Navin, for holding down the locker room when things were rough, especially on a team that has eleven true freshman.

“I don’t think we can overstate what a good job they’ve done keeping the ship together,” Eaves said on Feb. 20. “It’s not easy to have the record we have and not have things pull apart. They’ve done an excellent job at practice and in the locker room.”

The two main players Eaves has looked to for leadership is Navin and his co-captain, senior defenseman Chase Drake. Their relationship goes back even before their time as Badgers, as the two played in the same conference in high school.

Navin believes they work well together as co-captains because of how their differing leadership styles compliment one another. Navin said that Drake is much more of a vocal leader, while he aims to lead quietly and by example.

“Chase is the more furious one, the one that’s going to come in and set guys down and yell at them if something needs to be said,” Navin said. “That’s why we work well together. He can be the fiery guy and I can be the calm guy that guys can come to.”

While he’s not a big talker, Navin believes he reaches his teammates through his work on the ice and in the weight room. He was elected captain by his teammates and Eaves believes a big reason Navin’s teammates picked him to lead the team was due to his unmatched work ethic.

“I think they saw his work ethic and how he handles himself,” Eaves said. “He’s a man of integrity because he does what he says he’s going to do.”

Drake agreed, saying that much of why Navin is so important to the team is because of things that don’t show up on the stat sheet.

“I think what people don’t see is his work ethic,” Drake said of his co-captain. “Every day, whether it’s in the weight room or on the ice, it’s always 120 percent, which is something everybody appreciates and looks up to.”

Despite the team’s struggles this season, Navin is happy with the job he and Drake have done keeping the locker room in a good place.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of keeping a pretty loose environment in the locker room,” Navin said. “Coaches tell us all the time they’ve been part of teams where, when stuff doesn’t go your way, guys start bickering with one another and things just fall apart, but between the older guys and the leadership crew and the captains, I think we’ve done a pretty great job of keeping the camaraderie even keel.”

According to Drake, maintaining a high level of positivity has been one of the most important things their team must do in order to weather the storms this season has brought them.

“When the wins aren’t coming, the biggest thing is keeping everyone positive,” Drake said. “It’s tough to come to the rink when you have four wins and maybe you haven’t won in a month or anything, but keeping guys positive, keeping the mood up is one of the biggest things that we can do and have been doing.”

While Navin’s work ethic has always been sky high, his offensive production has really picked up as a late.

Navin tripled his goal total for the season last Friday during his senior weekend when he scored twice to notch his first multi-goal game of his career and increase his season goal total to three, after entering the series with one.

Nonetheless, Navin’s recent success isn’t distracting him from his main focus of making sure the team is ready to compete and believe they can win as they head into the Big Ten tournament in Detroit this weekend.

Navin has played 140 games for Wisconsin, but with the regular season, each game from this point on has a chance to be his last as a Badger. Navin is hopeful the end of his time in Madison will not mean the end of his time as a hockey player.

“We’ll see what happens in the next couple weeks or over the summer,” Navin said. “My goal is to try to play as long as I can and be here this summer working out, preparing for next season, wherever that might take me.”