Gophers, Badgers Set To Renew Border Battle

[Ryan Cardinal]

Gophers, Badgers Set To Renew Border Battle

After a pair of winless – and nearly goal-less – weekends to start the 2009-10 season, the Golden Gophers did exactly what they needed to do in a near-perfect sweep against Alaska Anchorage last weekend and now have momentum heading into this weekend’s Border Battle with the Wisconsin Badgers in Madison, Wisc.

The only downside to last weekend for the Gophers was the loss of freshman defenseman Nick Leddy to a broken jaw after he was crushed by UAA forward Jade Portwood coming across the offensive blueline on Friday night. There was no penalty on the play and after the game, coaches and players from both sides said that it was a clean hit and that while the result was unfortunate, Leddy had to learn a lesson the tough way.

However, Minnesota Head Coach Don Lucia said on Monday that, after giving the incident more thought, he was going to talk to WCHA officials about it since Portwood hit Leddy in the head with his shoulder, and hits to the head are prohibited by the rulebook.

Regardless, Leddy is expected to be out about six weeks, so he could return for the team’s home-and-home versus Minnesota State or the games at Michigan Tech on Dec. 11-12, though if he’s not 100 percent, the team’s next games aren’t until Jan. 2-3, and one would think he’d surely be 100 percent by then.

Aside from the loss of Leddy, there were many positives from the weekend:

• Junior goalie Alex Kangas played well enough in Friday night’s 5-1 victory to earn another start on Sunday for the rematch, despite sophomore Kent Patterson not doing anything on the surface to make Lucia go away from the goalie rotation he had talked about using before the season. Kangas was even better on Sunday in the 4-1 win, making several big saves in picking up his second win of the season.

• The team scored goals! Sounds basic, but with the team putting goose-eggs up on the scoresheet in three of their first four games, they had to get the offense going this weekend against a lower-tier WCHA team, which is exactly what they did. And more importantly, Jordan Schroeder had a four-point weekend after being held off the scoresheet the first four games of the season. The sophomore had four assists on the weekend playing between Jay Barriball and Mike Hoeffel, who combined for two goals and three assists on the weekend.

• Despite that trio’s good play, the best forward on the ice for Minnesota was senior captain Tony Lucia. He had two short-handed goals on Friday night, another tally in Sunday’s win, and was noticeable on both ends of the ice in blocking shots and doing “the little things” that have made him a valuable asset over his time at the U.

• Speaking off both ends of the ice, the Minnesota forwards really committed themselves to backchecking and playing good positional hockey in the defensive zone, which was not often the case in the first two series against North Dakota and Denver.

As Coach Lucia likes to say though, the speed limit goes up this weekend, as the Gophers head to the Kohl Center for a pair of games against Head Coach Mike Eaves and the Wisconsin Badgers.

The Gophers have traditionally played pretty well in Madison against the Badgers, having gone 8-5-3 since the 2001-02 season in the state of Wisconsin against the Badgers. Last season, the Gophers took three out of a possible four points against the Badgers in Madison, but were later swept at Mariucci Arena by the Badgers despite Minnesota carrying the play for the vast majority of the two losses. Minnesota outshot the Badgers by a 82-53 margin but the Gophers’ goaltending let the down big-time, yielding eight goals and posting a .849 save percentage for the weekend.

Regardless of who is in net for Minnesota, the goaltending is going to need to be a lot better this time around, particularly in the hostile environment of the Kohl Center. Kangas will likely get the nod on Friday night and if he keeps up his great play – he has a .939 save percentage and a goals against of 2.01 – there’s no reason to think Lucia won’t roll him out again in the Saturday rematch.

The Badgers are coming off a sweep as while, though there’s was much more impressive. They won both games against New Hampshire last weekend at the Kohl Center by a combined score of 10-2. Wisconsin, a traditionally defensive-minded team, had a whopping 95 shots in the two games to UNH’s 35.

Prior to that impressive effort, the Badgers hadn’t shown much. They took just one point from Colorado College at home to start the season, and then split a weekend series in Mankato against the Mavericks. However, looking at their roster, it’s logical to assume that this past weekend was more of a true representation of the kind of team the Cardinal and White will field this season.

Much like last season, the strength of this UW team will reside on the blueline. Their top pairing features two Minnesotans who were both first round NHL draft picks over the past few years in Jake Gardiner and Ryan McDonagh. Both are exceptional skaters, have good size, and are a force in both ends of the rink. The team’s leading scorer, junior Brendan Smith, was a first round pick by Detroit in 2007 and has nine points in six games so far. Fellow junior Cody Goloubef was a high second round pick in 2008 as well.

That core has made things much easier on the goaltending tandem of juniors Scott Gudmandson and Brett Bennett. Bennett is a transfer from Boston University after he was essentially kicked off the team following the 2007-08 season. He led the Indiana Ice to a USHL Clark Cup championship last season and it would appear that whatever issues he had in BU are no longer a problem. He and Gudmandson have split the duties on all three weekends so far and both have goals against averages under two and save percentages over 93 percent.

Up front, the Badgers are as deep as any team in the WCHA. Hastings native Derek Stepan, who had 33 points as a freshman last season and is off to a great start and will be a key for the UW offense all season long. Senior Blake Geoffrion is a great two-way player and was a second-round pick in 2006 by Nashville. He is a great faceoff man and will likely go head-to-head with Schroeder all weekend long with Eaves having the last change. Fifth-year senior Ben Street, who missed most of last season with a knee injury, should be a force to be reckoned with as well after being the team’s second-leading scorer in 2007-08.

For the Gophers, one of the biggest keys is going to be matching UW’s intensity. With their home crowd behind them, the Badgers are going to come out swinging, so it will be important for the Gophers young defensive core to not take penalties early on when one would figure the Badgers may control the play for the first five minutes or so on Friday night. With Leddy out, that likely means guys such as Sam Lofquist and Kevin Wehrs are going to be playing extended minutes, and haven’t shown that they can consistently play at a high level, which is going to be required this weekend.

Look for the pairing of David Fischer and Cade Fairchild to play big minutes for the Gophers on the blueline for Minnesota with some potential youth and/or size issues with the other pairings.

Minnesota finally scored a power play goal last Sunday (and scored two quazi-power play goals on Friday – one just seconds after a penalty expired and other on a delayed penalty with an extra attacker) but are going against a very stout UW penalty kill this weekend. The Badgers have killed off 30 of 32 power plays, so it’s not going to be easy for Minnesota to keep whatever power play momentum they have going.

In a way, these programs are at critical states and are similar in many ways. Both have national titles and many other banners to their credit in the last eight years, but on the flipside, neither team made the NCAA Tournament last season and have seen their overall success levels drop over the last three years or so, creating unrest among the fanbases for both teams. Both Lucia and Eaves are two of the highest paid coaches in the nation, get verbal commitments from high-end talent at a very young age, and have historic Big 10 programs behind them. Rest assured that neither fanbase will be too accepting of another NCAA Tournament taking place without their team in the field of 16.

Both games will air live on Fox Sports North on both Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. both nights.

[dxmnkd316]

f me sideways... That's a long article. Good read though!

[Sioux 7]

Looking at the records, Friday's game will be the 250th meeting between the Gophers and Badgers in hockey, and Saturady will be game 251.