The drive for .500....by Christmas

Ok the Badgers Men are 0-5-1 (while their counterparts are comfortable at 9-0-1) and things are looking pretty dire. What we need is some optimism though, and faith in the team.

Sure A LOT of things haven't gone well to start the season. The Men have allowed 30 goals and Ben Street is likely done for the season. The defense has been poor at best, goaltending has done an ok job (at least Connelly) despite the stats, and the offense has scored 3.6 goals a game. The Badgers score like that last season and they win 25 games. Sure the schedule has been tough too, but that is no excuse. As others have said in various places, UW are a top national program, and should play like one. Teams should fear playing the Badgers, not score 6 seconds in due to complete laziness.

There is always positive, beyond the scoring, the freshman forwards have looked good. Jordy Murray is 2nd in scoring, Matt Thurber notched his first goal saturday and Derek Stepan is going to bust a few one of these nights. The defensemen are scoring, though time to concentrate on defense for awhile guys. The PP is decent this season, and the PK was strong last weekend.

Right now sittting at 0-5-1 the first thing the Badgers need to worry about is getting to .500 (beyond getting that first win), and I think they can do that by Christmas if they pull things together starting this weekend. The following is my breakdown of the remaining schedule til Christmas break, along w/ what I think should happen.

@ North Dakota - Split (1-6-1) - the Sioux are struggling too, get a win and start rolling
vs Michigan Tech - Sweep (3-6-1) - this team is not good this season
@ Duluth - 3 pts (4-6-2) - Duluth is also bad and the blog will be there to inspire the team
@ St. Cloud - Split (5-7-2) - Hopefully get some revenge for the WCHA playoffs
College Hockey Showcase - Split (6-8-2)
vs UAA - Sweep (8-8-2) - They might finish 8th in the WCHA, we can't afford a loss to them at home

There you have it, sure the Badgers don't have "a" win yet, but I think this is reasonable. After Christmas the Badgers have the Showdown, vs N. Michigan and @ UAA to start. I'm hoping by the time the boys fly back from UAA this whole start is forgotten.