Win or go home.
Postseason has begun for the Wisconsin women’s hockey team. The Badgers host the St. Cloud State Huskies this weekend at the Eagle’s Nest in Verona, and the squad is heading into the weekend knowing it has to win to move on.
“This is just a two week season,” head coach Mark Johnson said. “It’s nothing more and nothing less than what happens in the next two weeks. You can make it two weeks if you win two games this weekend.”
Finishing with 30 wins on the season, the Badgers take on a struggling Huskies squad that only managed one win through 33 games.
Regardless of what happened during the regular season, Wisconsin isn’t going to overlook St. Cloud by any means.
“Everyone is zero-zero right now,” Johnson said. “The regular season is over. Whether you had a great season, an average season, or a bad season, it doesn’t matter right now. [It] certainly gives everybody new life that maybe didn’t have the year that they wanted to. We just have to continue to do what we’re doing.”
Still, considering the last time these two teams met, the Badgers posted a total of 16 goals on the weekend while also shutting out St. Cloud both nights.
Junior forward Hilary Knight netted a hat trick the first night and followed up with two more goals the next game. In a 10-goal rout Friday night, seven different Badgers found the back of the net.
Wisconsin knows it needs to create the same kind of offense if it wants to extend its playoff run.
“They have a really good goaltender, so shooting the puck and capitalize when we get chances, don’t try and play individually,” freshman forward Madison Packer said when asked about UW’s keys for the weekend. “Obviously, just play our game.”
But for Wisconsin, the No. 1 team in the nation, the playoffs aren’t anything to get too worked up about.
The seasoned Badger squad is going to approach this weekend just like any other one.
“I think we’re just going to do what we’ve done all year, continue to work hard in practice and review video,” Knight said. “It’s a playoff game, we’re only guaranteed one more week, we’ve got to beat them in order to get another week.”
As they’ve done all season long, the Badgers just need to create as many scoring opportunities as they can, hopefully finding the back of the net when they need it most.
“They haven’t lost a game yet in the postseason and neither have we,” Johnson said. “It brings new life into a team that hasn’t had a very good season. Friday night will dictate a lot how the series will go. If they come out here like we did in the most recent three or four weekends and play with that intensity level we’ve been able to do for a long period of time, we should create chances. They’ve got a good goaltender who can make a lot of saves.”
Despite the recent success Wisconsin has had and the struggles St. Cloud has faced all season, the squad knows it can’t overlook anyone, especially during the WCHA playoffs.
“For one thing, this time of year, you can’t look past anyone,” Johnson said. “You don’t look anything past this weekend because we’ve seen a lot of strange things happen in this business, and plenty of things happen when you get in the playoffs.”
