WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

[icebadger]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Any word on the extent of McCabe's injury. Didn't see it, but some friends said it didn't look good on TV.

Thanks,

Todd

I was curious too. It was just on the edge of the replay and the UND announcers were more focused on their guy who got hurt on the play. Kinda looked like a 5 min CFB in the limited view I saw.

Side note: I added the sports package to my cable bill specifically for this weekend. Saturday night made me regret that.

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

I don't know, but if he's out and Lee's out, if UW gets a pp, I'd instruct one of the F's to take a penalty right away, I like UW's chances 4 on 4 vs 5 on 4. You probably couldn't have a pp this bad if you tried. There has some talk about a guy like Schultz's impact on the pp, but since UW is clipping off at 10%, there's no way 1 Schultz is worth 7% on the pp, assuming the average nationally is 17%.

This team is just so depressing, missing players and all, and wasting championship level defensive play with this paltry scoring.

I disagree, I think a guy like Schultz could be worth 7%. 1) He is a stud, 2) having a force like him out there pushes a lesser player to the 2nd unit, which then pushes an even lesser player off of the PP when they probably aren't ready for it. The PP QB can make a huge impact, and UW has no PP UW right now at least not like Schultz or McBain.

My issue is, the PP is obviously not working, but Eaves is too rigid to get out of his system to try something that might work w/ the players that he has. This is a weakness in his coaching IMO because good coaches don't wait, endlessly, for their system to work, they fix their system so it does work, or at least achieve better results than are currently occurring.

[Almington]

I disagree, I think a guy like Schultz could be worth 7%. 1) He is a stud, 2) having a force like him out there pushes a lesser player to the 2nd unit, which then pushes an even lesser player off of the PP when they probably aren't ready for it. The PP QB can make a huge impact, and UW has no PP UW right now at least not like Schultz or McBain.

My issue is, the PP is obviously not working, but Eaves is too rigid to get out of his system to try something that might work w/ the players that he has. This is a weakness in his coaching IMO because good coaches don't wait, endlessly, for their system to work, they fix their system so it does work, or at least achieve better results than are currently occurring.

I'd agree with you about trying something different on the PP, if the D had demonstrated anything resembling offensive ability. Without a playmaker at the point (or in the center on the umbrella) to distribute the puck the PP is going to suffer.

Lack of offensive ability from the blue line is killing this team offensively. Add a 20 min TOI offensive dman to this team would be worth a half a goal a game, that would have totally changed the complexion of the season. Schultz was SO good that he masked how bad the rest of the defense was offensively last season.

[Chuck Schwartz]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Eaves has tried different things on the PP this season, including personnel. Actually, they've been trying different things the past three weekends in a row.

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Eaves has tried different things on the PP this season, including personnel. Actually, they've been trying different things the past three weekends in a row.

I know he has tried different players, and I'll admit I'm no hockey expert on game play, but even w/ those changes I haven't seen them do anything different from a system stand point. In fact, I have basically seen the same PP for 8 years now, it works when Eaves has the talent, and it sucks when he doesn't.

I'll give him credit, overall, he runs a great PK though.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Might as well put Kerdiles and Mersch up top with McCabe. No sense in leaving them down low waiting for a puck that never comes. Send Rammer or the Littles or maybe Dahl down low. At least those guys are winning some puck battles in the corners lately. Maybe between them we could get at least get a pp set up. Something we only seem to be able to do once every ten trips or so.

I seldom like to single anyone out but I just wonder about Zengerle. Maybe it's me, but it just doesn't seem like he's been the same guy this year. Not just point wise, but all the way around. Am I the only one?

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Might as well put Kerdiles and Mersch up top with McCabe. No sense in leaving them down low waiting for a puck that never comes. Send Rammer or the Littles or maybe Dahl down low. At least those guys are winning some puck battles in the corners lately. Maybe between them we could get at least get a pp set up. Something we only seem to be able to do once every ten trips or so.

I seldom like to single anyone out but I just wonder about Zengerle. Maybe it's me, but it just doesn't seem like he's been the same guy this year. Not just point wise, but all the way around. Am I the only one?

Not to start the year, but since his injury. I was thinking this exact thing this morning.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Not to start the year, but since his injury. I was thinking this exact thing this morning.

I don't know if it just stood out more on Saturday... I mean Knight, Kristo, and little guy are pretty impressive and tough to play against but it just seems like there are shifts where Zengerle plays and shifts where he's hardly there. Unless there's something physical, he just seems like a better player all around to me than he's shown the last month.

[Gurtholfin]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

No one's gonna deny that Schultz was great.

On Friday, we couldn't even get the puck into their zone and set up for the second half of the 5mm. Same for the power play in OT. 4.5 minutes of man advantage where we can't even win a 2 on 1 board battle.

Surely we don't need a Schultz just to gain possession of the puck, do we?

[Gurtholfin]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

Zengerle's been pretty invisible lately. No doubt about it.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

No one's gonna deny that Schultz was great.

On Friday, we couldn't even get the puck into their zone and set up for the second half of the 5mm. Same for the power play in OT. 4.5 minutes of man advantage where we can't even win a 2 on 1 board battle.

Surely we don't need a Schultz just to gain possession of the puck, do we?

Agree... But I just watched Eaves presser. Turns out their just trying too hard. So... you know... no worries.


McCabe is getting another x-ray today and Lee still has some headaches, so both are ?'s still.

[Timothy A]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

I disagree, I think a guy like Schultz could be worth 7%. 1) He is a stud, 2) having a force like him out there pushes a lesser player to the 2nd unit, which then pushes an even lesser player off of the PP when they probably aren't ready for it. The PP QB can make a huge impact, and UW has no PP UW right now at least not like Schultz or McBain.

If he's worth 7%, then the top 27 teams who have a pp % equal to or better than 17% all have a Schultz type QB on their team? I'm humbly not buying.....McCabe at this point in his career isn't much of a PP QB, or they wouldn't suck. If they don't have Lee this weekend they might as well put a cone at the other point and ricochet the puck off it.

[burd]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

One thing that stands out as different with this team. In the past, at least agains the Sioux, if the Badgers seized momentum, even on foreign ice, they were deadly. Sioux fans got sick of seeing the Badgers come back with goals when they needed them, sometimes when you figured the Sioux had them on the ropes. They played extremely well Friday night only to fall flat when they got the major--a time when they usually would have stuck the dagger in. You can say it's just the PP, but it seems to be something more or different. It's like the eagerness and hunger to score is lacking. Maybe that is attributable to lack of finishers, but I'm not convinced it's that. They've been hot in recent weeks, so it's unfair for someone like me who doesn't watch them often to be critical, but UND is not that strong at this point, and UW certainly should have rung the bell Friday night.

That's not a very analytical contribution to this discussion, but there are more things missing with that team than just hockey skills and work ethic.

[Gandalf the Red]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

If he's worth 7%, then the top 27 teams who have a pp % equal to or better than 17% all have a Schultz type QB on their team? I'm humbly not buying.....McCabe at this point in his career isn't much of a PP QB, or they wouldn't suck. If they don't have Lee this weekend they might as well put a cone at the other point and ricochet the puck off it.

That disregards competition, if the Badgers were in the AHA or ECAC do you think they would be worst in the country w/ the guys they have on the ice? While the Badgers are only 21st in SOS this year, they have shown they can score on the PP when they play weaker teams and not when they play better teams. A lot of teams above the arbitrary 17% are either in those conferences or are the top teams in the power conferences headed to the NCAA tourney and yes many of those teams have someone close to a Schultz running their PP.

On top of that, the Badgers overall forward talent is lacking, and those other teams have the extra talent as a cummulative group which the Badgers obviously do not. And further, some of those teams probably have a second or third defenseman of quality offensively adding to their attack. Remember how good the PP was when someone was feeding Brendan Smith the puck, but also contributed their own offense on the PP back in 2010?

UW is also in the top half of the WCHA, but they haven't gotten there because of their offense, but because of their defense. 5th nationally is a great showing in scoring defense.

UW basically has the same team as last year besides Schultz and Springer. I'll level with you, Schultz is only worth 6%.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: WISCONSIN Hockey Vol. XXIV - Craziest Season Of All Time

While the Badgers are only 21st in SOS this year, they have shown they can score on the PP when they play weaker teams and not when they play better teams..

I was curious about this so here are the numbers:

Against teams in the bottom 20 in the nation in penalty killing (the highest included, MI Tech, is tied for 39th with WI.) WI is 7-31 on th pp. (22.5%) Sounds stellar, but these teams are a combined 405- 518- 78.1% pk. Still, you could say Bucky is .6% better than average against the bottom.

Against the remaining teams in the top 2/3, WI pp is a nearly unbelievable 1-47 or 2.13%. (Having gone 1-6 against 30th place UMD- 83.3% pk.)

While this bears out Gandalf's statement regarding WI performance against the low end, the level of futility against everyone else is ridiculous. I'm not too sure Schultz comes close to making us 8x or 9x better there.

Besides it's more than just the guy at the top. The first thing we have to accomplish is possessing the puck. I don't care who is out there, if you are playing D1 hockey there is no reason not to be able to possess the puck more than your man down opponent does. Let's start there.