Men's Hockey: With a date with the champs looming, Badgers need to find their offensive game . . . fast
- Post Authorby Sports director
- Post DateThu Oct 24 2024
By Anthony Winker
This wasn't supposed to happen. Not after last year.
The University of Wisconsin men's hockey team entered the 2024-2025 campaign riding the high of one of the craziest turnaround seasons in NCAA history. They doubled their output from two years prior from 13 wins to 26 and qualified for the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in the last 10 seasons. Were there offseason changes? Yes. But it wasn't supposed to look like this for the preseason No. 10 team in the nation.
Yet, here we are, with the No. 20 Badgers (1-3-0, 0-2-0 Big Ten), defeated in three of their first four contests at home and needing overtime in the lone victory, looking lackluster offensively and staring down the barrel of a disastrous 1-5 start if they can't take a game from defending national champion Denver, their next test. That's a bit of an upgrade from Lindenwood and Ohio State, UW's first two opponents. And this time, the Badgers have to hit the road.
Offseason departures certainly pointed to a change in identity for the Badgers towards head coach Mike Hastings past teams at Minnesota State. The departures of younger, skill players like William Whitelaw (Michigan), Cruz Lucius (Arizona State), and Charlie Stramel (Michigan State) and the additions of more experienced players signaled a shift towards the hard-nosed, hard-to-play-against style that got Hastings to back-to-back Frozen Fours in his last two seasons with the Mavericks. However, it doesn't matter how hard you are to play against if you can't score, and, unfortunately, that's currently an issue for Wisconsin.
“Defensively, I don't think we're terrible but offensively we're not very productive right now,” Hastings said following a 2-1 defeat against the Buckeyes last Saturday. “So that's got to be torn down and rebuilt in a real hurry. Because I'm going to tell you, we're going on the road to a place that is very difficult to play.”
The Badgers have heavily outshot the opposition so far, tossing 37 shots on goal per game against just 19 allowed. With just seven goals on the year, the shooting percentage is a woeful 4.7%.
It's not like the Badgers don't have guys who can score. Michigan Tech transfers Ryland Mosley and Kyle Kukkonen each flirted with 20 goal seasons for the Huskies at least once in the past two seasons. RIT transfer Cody Laskosky scored 14 last year for the Tigers and was over a point per game. The Badgers also returned double-digit goal scorers Simon Tassy (12 goals last season), Owen Lindmark (11) and Quinn Finley (10). But, it hasn't mattered so far.
“Those are stats,” Hastings said. “The stats that matter are wins and losses and the process that goes into those. So, for me, we need more from some and the biggest thing is getting everyone on the same page, having buy-in and finding a way . . . we're not far off from the idea of opportunities but as far as execution and staying connected, we've got a long way to go.”
Now, what was supposed to be a marquee matchup this weekend between a couple of NCAA title hopefuls now features one of those teams in desperate need of a win to avoid a start that would be tough to recover from. To do that, the offense needs to find a way to support Finley and Mosley, who have accounted for five of the seven goals scored this season by the Badgers, and fast.
It's been a decade since the Badgers have consolidated one winning season with another one. If they can't figure out how to score some more goals, that streak will extend and the Badgers will have a lot of tough questions to answer.