When the 2014-2015 season began five months ago with a trip to Lindenwood University, a fairly large private school in Missouri, the Wisconsin women’s hockey team came in ranked at number two.

The ranking came with skepticism since a large contingent of seniors had left after the prior season. Among those were captain Alex Rigsby, and assistant captains Madison Packer and Kelly Jaminski — each having played extremely vital roles in their respective positions.

Rigsby was argued to be Wisconsin’s best-ever goalie. Jaminski, a notable defender, finished her career with a total plus-minus rating of +84. And Packer, a distinguished forward, tallied over 100 career points skating for the Badgers.

Among the three were an additional four seniors for a total of seven key players leaving. Such turnovers of personnel have destroyed teams, most evidently their next door neighbor in the Kohl Center. The Wisconsin men’s hockey team lost ten seniors this past offseason and has since had a rather sub-par year (2-18-4 overall).

Typically, players have a hard time adjusting to the faster pace of the college game. Freshman Annie Pankowski admitted this early on in the season as she adjusted to the competition.

Yet Pankowski finds herself a household name five months later, having put 14 shots past opposing goaltenders, and assisted 17 others in the process. While this is quite a fascinating situation in that a true freshman has found herself in the center of the spotlight, the bigger anomaly is how many other freshman and sophomores have done the same for the Badgers this year.

Ann-Renee Desbiens, the sophomore goaltender, has been lights out. Posting a 12-2-1 record, a 1.32 goals against average and a .931 save percentage.

Emily Clark, a freshman forward, has been Pankowski’s other half. Clark currently sits at eight goals and 13 assists through Saturday’s game. Sarah Nurse, a sophomore forward, currently has nine goals and eight assists.

“The freshman have been able to step up,” senior forward Karley Sylvester said. “They’ve learned the game well and stepped into their roles. The sophomores have gotten progressively better and better and become a huge part of our team.”

In addition to sophomores Sidney McKibbon, Jenny Ryan, and Melissa Channell, along with freshmen Baylee Wellhausen and Maddie Rolfes, together, the young group makes up nine of Wisconsin’s top 15 point scorers and 49 percent of the team’s goals this season (49 of 99 goals scored).

“Leadership is not a problem with these players,” Wisconsin head coach Mark Johnson. “On their previous teams they were captains or leaders there, I think as you get older you get more comfortable. It’s just how they conduct themselves. The more you do the right things the more you get noticed.”

The leadership the underclassman exhibit however, Johnson believes, owes in large part to the amount of help they’ve received from their older counterparts.

“I believe that it has to do with the upperclassmen,” Johnson said. “They’ve helped them, welcomed them, supported them and have been really mentoring and caring for them. Once those players realize they’ve got help, a trust builds and their game evolves.”

Five months into the season, the team finds itself only one spot below that initial ranking they started with to begin the season.

That is not to say that the upperclassmen on the team have been slacking in production, though. It is actually quite the contrary. Captain Blayre Turnbull exhibited her offensive prowess this past Saturday in a 5-0 stomping of Minnesota – Duluth where she tallied a hat-trick off  three power-play goals. Sylvester leads the team in points with 32 (12 goals, 20 assists) and Brittany Ammerman finds herself third in points with 31 (11 goals, 20 assists).

The key to the younger players playing so well has been the depth and the energy they bring to the ice each night.

“I try not to put too much pressure on myself,” Clark said. “We have a lot of really good players on the team and depth so we all share the load. I try to bring a lot of energy whenever I can get on the ice because others are there to help.”

The team has demonstrated that age does not necessarily come with superior skill, and that youth does not therefore come with a lack of it. The true spirit of this Badgers team has come in the form of meshing the experienced players with the inexperienced ones to create a truly dangerous team.

Ammerman and her line with Pankowski and Clark has been an example of how deadly this meshing can be. The trio have combined for 33 goals and 50 assists, a total of 88 points.

As the playoffs come around in a month, these players who didn’t know each other and had never skated on the same ice as each other some months ago, will be in the hunt for the nation’s top prize. It’s an extremely noble feat regardless of the outcome for a team that has come together so closely in such little time.