Much to my disappointment, I missed Coach Jutting after the game, so most of this stuff is Badgerific.
Obviously the mood was not particularly happy from the Wisconsin guys after the game.
Coach Eaves said the Badgers came out really slow in the first period. There's two schools of thought with this. One says that that accounts for the team being flat. The other is that they should have had fresh legs and been flying. Eaves tended to agree with the first, while captain Andrew Joudrey echoed the second. In any case, Wisconsin did not come out looking like this was "the most important game of the season," which the coaching staff stressed this week in practice.
Eaves was asked about Joudrey and he said nobody takes things harder than he does, which seemed true. Joudrey summed up the night best when he said "There's reasons, but there are no excuses."
Eaves really stressed that everybody was trying to do everybody else's job in the second period as opposed to just worrying about their own play.
As a whole, the message from the Badgers was that they didn't play a full 60 minutes, and they need to get better at always playing at their best. Said Jack Skille, "We're playing when we have to, not when we should.
Jack Skille drew Wisconsin's first two penalties, and probably should have drawn a third when he was called for coincidental minors with Chad Brownlee in the third.
I thought Marco Hunt called a very solid game tonight. A lot has been made about poor officiating this year, so I think it deserves note when someone does a nice job.
Eaves said the Badgers had a great week of practice in terms of scoring goals, but that it didn't translate onto the ice. He credited MSU's defense collapsing in front of Zacharias for a lot of that.
Mike Zacharias' 23 saves on 24 shots finally pushes his save percentage over the 90% mark. He's now at .902 on the season.
Jon Kalinski got another short-handed breakaway tonight, and wasn't able to convert. This time, he tried shooting the puck instead of his usual deke to the backhand, but wasn't able to convert.
Wisconsin held a 33-23 advantage in face-offs tonight. Ben Street had the best night at the circle with 9 wins and 4 losses. Travis Morin was 10 for 21 on face-offs. Trevor Bruess was 2 for 13 on face-offs.
Though the Mavericks got a goal from Steve Wagner, their defenseman generated very little offense. Other than Wagner's goal, Brian Kilburg was the only other MSU defenseman with a shot on goal in the game. Kilburg and R.J. Linder also missed the net with one shot each.
