Saturday Night Lineups: Murray Out, Meuer In

Just saw the lineups posted by Grand Forks Herald beat writer Brad Elliott Schlossman and Jordy Murray is not in the lineup tonight for Wisconsin. I guess the injury was serious enough to hold him out of tonight's match up vs North Dakota.

If you missed it, Murray was injured on an illegal elbow to the head by UND forward Brett Hextall. Hextall was assessed a five minute major and game misconduct for contact to the head.

Wisconsin captain Sean Dolan tweeted this today, "Jordy is feeling better today has some nice zips in his chin... Can't wait for the game tonight."

Wisconsin head coach Mike Eaves has promoted senior winger Podge Turnbull up to the top unit with Craig Smith and Mark Zengerle. Should be a great opportunity for Turnbull tonight. Red shirt freshman Keegan Meuer has been inserted on the fourth line on the right side with Jefferson Dahl and Jason Clark. This will be Meuer's third game for the Badgers this season.

Another interesting note is Eaves going back to Scott Gudmandson (pictured) again tonight. Scott played great last night but I don't like this move. I've been a proponent of the rotation and it's way too early to be picking and choosing spots. Brett Bennett has played just as good this season and deserves the opportunity against North Dakota tonight. That said, I'm very confident that Gudmandson will play great tonight. What a great problem to have.

WISCONSIN LINES

8 Podge Turnbull–15 Craig Smith–9 Mark Zengerle
10 Patrick Johnson–16 Sean Dolan–20 Ryan Little
25 Michael Mersch–23 Derek Lee–7 Tyler Barnes
29 Jason Clark–14 Jefferson Dahl–12 Keegan Meuer

19 Jake Gardiner–6 Justin Schultz
3 Craig Johnson–55 John Ramage
24 Joe Faust–27 Frankie Simonelli

1 Scott Gudmandson
33 Brett Bennett

NORTH DAKOTA LINES

11 Derek Rodwell–22 Brad Malone–7 Danny Kristo
17 Jason Gregoire–10 Corban Knight–26 Brett Hextall
19 Evan Trupp–29 Brock Nelson–21 Matt Frattin
8 Mike Cichy–9 Mario Lamoureux–20 Joe Gleason

24 Ben Blood–5 Chay Genoway
3 Derrick LaPoint–18 Dillon Simpson
4 Derek Forbort–25 Jake Marto

32 Aaron Dell
31 Brad Eidsness

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09/10 Men's Previews: #26 Keegan Meuer

Vitals:

Position: Forward
Year in School: Freshman
Shoots Right
Height: 5-10
Weight: 175 lbs
Hometown: Madison, WI
Major: Undeclared
Previous Team: Waterloo (USHL) last season

NHL Considerations: Too early to tell.

08/09 Stats: 54 games, 8-19-27, -8, 107 PIM
07/08 Stats: 52 games, 2-22-24, +7, 49 PIM

09/10 Role: fighting for PT

08/09 Recap: Played last season w/ teammate Craig Smith and UW recruit Tyler Barnes in Waterloo. Had another good season for the Black Hawks, playing in all situations. Will be the third Madison native on the this season.

Biggest Strength: From the one game I saw him play last season, he reminded me a lot of Patrick Johnson. His offensive skills are ok, but he does well in his own zone, and leaves his best effort out on the ice.

Biggest Weakness: He had a lot of PIM last season in Waterloo, haven’t seen him play enough to offer more of an opinion.

09/10 Thoughts: W/ the depth at forward, I don’t see Keegan getting a ton of PT this season. I’d estimate that he is 16 on the depth chart, but he’s a hard worker, so if some of the regulars in Eaves’ doghouse find themselves there again this season, Keegan would be happy to make the most of the opportunity.

Overall, a good 4 year player for the Badgers. He is the nephew of Badger greats Jeff and Rob Andringa.

Prediction: 4 games, 0-1-1*
*All predictions for regular season only

Photo from uwbadgers.com

Breaking the ice with Keegan Meuer

Evidently, UWBadgers.com is going to do a sort of survey/profile of all our freshmen in the coming weeks. Part 1 with Keegan Meuer is up on the website. It's not much more than a Q&A type of survey, but for those interested, here's some of the highlights:

Favorite Sports Team: Green Bay Packers

How many songs in your ipod/mp3 player: 1,542

First job: Bus boy at State Street Brats

Hidden talent nobody knows about: I can fit a quarter in my nose

Why did you come to Wisconsin: I was born a Badger

Worst movie you’ve ever seen: "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story"

Who would you entrust your spare house/apartment key to? Leslie Johnson (Patrick Johnson’s mom)

You have to wonder if he's going to get crap from Ratty about that last one...

Derek Lee finishes off weekend strong

The Victoria Grizzles won again yesterday, going 3-0 on the weekend, and Derek Lee did his part w/ two goals and an assist. On the weekend, Derek went 3-6-9, which is quite impressive. A few weeks back he was about 50th overall in league scoring, now he's tied for 19th w/ 13-42-55. Can't wait to see him in the Cardinal and White next season!

In some other recruit news, Craig Smith had a good weekend for the Waterloo Black Hawks. Craig had a goal and two assists on friday night as Waterloo hung 10 goals on Des Moines and Aaron Crandall (more on that in a bit). On saturday, Craig had a PP goal in a loss to Cedar Rapids. Craig is still 2nd in the USHL in scoring w/ a lot of season left to go. I just noticed that he will be 20 years old when the 2009 season starts. This is a huge bonus having an older experienced player coming in.

Keegan Meuer also had a goal against Crandall on friday night. Also in the game Keegan went toe to toe w/ future gopher puke Ryan Walters. Dplaya over at HIW had this video linked. Walters gets the better of the fight til the end when Keegan gets in some nice shots.

Also in that link is Keegan's goal on Aaron Crandall. As Dplaya says, "With defense like that, it's no wonder Crandall only stopped 44 of 54 shots...." While I think Crandall is definately struggling, if that video is what the defense in front of him is normally like, I feel sorry for the kid.

Recruit Update: USHL Part I

Wisconsin has 8 recruits in the USHL so I'm going to break this update up into two posts. We'll start w/ the young men on the Waterloo Black (Badger) Hawks, all of which will be joining the Badgers next season.

Tyler Barnes has spent the season w/ Waterloo getting his feet wet in the USHL. The Mr. Hockey finalist in MN started off the season strong, but has quieted down. Since Christmas, Tyler is 0-2-2, -4, w/ 0 PIM.

Overall Tyler's stats aren't bad for a rookie USHL season. He is 6-11-17, +5, w/ 22 PIM, 2 PP goals and a 14% shooting %age in 29 games. He is only 4 pts behind the #3 scorer on the team, as Waterloo has a slew of quality talent.

W/ a solid finish to the season, Tyler might hear his name in June at the NHL draft. Either way he'll be a nice addition to Wisconsin's forward corp next season.


Keegan Meuer is in the middle of his third season w/ Waterloo and is definately on track for his best season (only three pts shy of all of last season). In seven games since the break, he is 1-2-3, -4, w/ 2 PIM.

Through 31 games this season, Keegan is 5-16-21, +4, w/ 41 PIM, and 1-4-5 on the PP. He is tied for third on the team in scoring and assists.

I don't expect him to light the lamp early and often at Wisconsin, but he is going to the kinda player (like Patrick Johnson) that makes a team successful.


Similar to Keegan Meuer, Craig Smith is in his third season w/ Waterloo, and having a breakout year. In seven games since Christmas, Craig is 4-8-12, +1, w/ 8 PIM and 3 PP goals. His best performances were on 1/2 when he had 4 assists, and this past saturday when he notched 2 goals and an assist. Somehow in the latter game he wasn't 1st star, something smells fishy in Fargo...

Craig's played in a few less games (27) than most because of the Junior A Challenge, but still leads his team in every statisical catergory besides +/- where he is 2nd. His stats: 18-25-43, +18, 67 PIM, 16.8% shooting, and 7-9-16 on the PP. Overall he is 2nd in the USHL in pts, 3rd in goals, t-2nd in assists, t-4th in +/- and tied for 3rd in PP goals.

I think his season speaks for itself.

Unlike the BCHL, the USHL is about halfway home, w/ the regular season stretching until April (BCHL regular season ends next month). Right now Waterloo sits in 4th in the East Division w/ 41 pts, only 5 pts behind 1st place. The Black Hawks are also the highest scoring team in the league.

Also, Joe Pavelski's #8 will be retired by Waterloo this weekend. Pavs was a key part of the 2004 Clark Cup champions, where he captained the team and was later named USA Junior POY. Congrats to Joe!

Huge Night for Waterloo Badger Hawks

The Waterloo Blackhawks laid the smack down on Indiana tonight 10-3. Waterloo's friday night game was postponed due to weather.

Craig Smith had 2 goals and 2 assists, Tyler Barnes and Keegan Meuer each had a goal and 2 assists. Smith was 1st star and Meuer was 3rd star. Nice work guys can't wait to have you in the Cardinal and White next Fall!

Also, the USHL website currently has a poll on who of the current top 10 scorers will reign supreme at season's end. If interested scroll down to the bottom of their site and vote for Craig Smith.

Up in Green Bay this weekend, the Gamblers hosted Sioux City for a pair of games. Damn the weather, I would have been there tonight if not for old man winter continue his onslaught. My complaints aside, Jefferson Dahl had a nice weekend. On friday he scored the Gamblers only goal, while tonight he added an assist. Neither Sean Little (GB) nor Chase Drake (SC) dented the score sheet.

As wojo pointed out in 60's Aaron Crandall post, he got shelled on friday night. Luckily tonight's game for Des Moines was postponed.

Recruiting, the good news

Pictures from the player's respective USHL and BCHL website

Five players have returned National Letters of Intent and will be joining the Wisconsin Badgers next Fall to start the 2009/10 season.

Those players are: Justin Schultz, Tyler Barnes, Derek Lee, Keegan Mauer and Craig Smith.

As Todd points out, Aaron Crandall was not part of this group. Well either was Brock Montpetit, but that is old news now. Aaron had the following to say.

Nothing to worry about, Aaron Crandall said.

"I'm just signing in April," Crandall said. "Everything's still on plan."

As for the five players who signed LOI, Coach Eaves had the following to say about each young man.

Eaves on Lee: “Derek is a very skilled offensive player. He has great vision of the ice and has the innate ability to make the plays that he sees.”

Eaves on Schultz: “Justin is a very fine offensive defenseman. We’ve had a few of them here recently. Much like Derek, when you talk about offensive guys, there are certain adjectives that stay the same. He moves very well, he sees the ice very well and he has the innate ability to make the plays that he sees. He’ll be a young man who will provide offense from the blue line.”


Eaves on Meuer: “Keegan is a heart-and-soul player. He is guy who you want to go into the fox hole with. He’ll come to battle every night. He’ll give the team energy. He understands what it takes to win and is willing to do whatever he can. He’ll bring the hard in bushels and he’ll bring the type of energy that is very much a part of a championship team.”



Eaves on Smith: “Craig will fall into the category of a power forward. He is a big lad who can really skate and brings a physical presence to the game, but he also some ability with the puck. His foundation, the way he plays comes from his speed and raw power.”

Eaves on Barnes: “Tyler is kind of a hybrid between Derek Lee and Craig Smith. He is a very competitive young man who doesn’t shy away from getting physical but he has a nice package of offensive skills. He is one of those guys who have that disease of being able to score. The puck finds him or he takes a shot and it goes in for him but not somebody else, so he brings a nice offensive package along with a real competitive edge.”

So some good news comes out of the recruiting side of things afterall. Having seen Meuer, Smith and Barnes play, I'm pretty excited for them to join the Badgers. Craig Smith is having the year a lot of fans were waiting for and he should be ready to contribute significantly next season. Schultz is the big name of the class as a 2nd round pick. I'm sure McBain or McDonagh will be leaving early, and he will be a nice replacement for them. Lee could be a special player for the Badgers.

Over at Hockey In Wisconsin, Dplaya sent an email to the Salmon Arm Silverbacks and receiving some scouting back from their coach on recent recruit Mark Zengerle, Derek Lee and Menomonie native Justin Csester. The post includes a video of Zengerle.

Dplaya also has a post about Brock Montpetit w/ some interesting thoughts.

Keegan Meuer commits for 2009

In what seems to become a weekly trend, the Wisconsin hockey program has picked up another commitment. Madison native Keegan Meuer has committed to Wisconsin for the 2009-2010 season. Meuer is currently a forward for the Waterloo Black Hawks. As many of you know, Wisconsin has a great connection with Waterloo. As it stands right now, Wisconsin has 4 forwards on the Black Hawks that are scheduled to enter Wisconsin for the 2009-2010 season! (Brock Montpetit, Craig Smith, and Tyler Barnes are the other 3)

Before becoming a Black Hawk, Meuer was a forward with the Madison Memorial hockey program under legendary coach Vic Levine. There he played with Current Badger forward Pat Johnson. Early in their high school days it was Meuer who was thought to have more potential. (They were born 3 months apart) Now it looks like we'll see both in the Cardinal and White.