Wisconsin Opens Up WCHA Playoffs With 3-1 Win

Nice solid effort from everyone on the roster Friday night. Need to be more disciplined but overall a very nice performance.

WSJ (Baggot)-Faust's first career goal jump-starts Badgers
Colorado Springs Gazette (Paisley)-Wisconsin drops CC in playoff opener
Eye of the Tigers (Paisley blog)-Emptying the notebook
UWBadgers.com-Unlikely hero's spring Badgers to 3-1 win to open WCHA playoffs
UWBadgers.com-Game day blog
UWBadgers.com-Final Stats
CCTigers.com-Wisconsin draws first blood
USCHO.com-Box Score

BOX SCORE

Second Period
Colorado College-1 Nick Dineen (Gabe Guentzel, Stephen Schultz) PPG 5:53
Wisconsin-1 Joe Faust (Michael Mersch, Sean Dolan) 12:11

Third Period
Wisconsin-2 Ryan Little (Keegan Meuer, Jefferson Dahl) GWG 4:12
Wisconsin-3 Jefferson Dahl (Jordy Murray) ENG 19:49

Goaltender Saves
Wisconsin-1 Scott Gudmandson (60:00 W) 8 9 10 = 27 (1 GA)
Colorado College-1 Joe Howe (58:26 L) 6 6 7 = 19 (2 GA)

Scores from around the WCHA

Bemidji State 4, Nebraska-Omaha 2
Alaska-Anchorage 4, Minnesota 3
North Dakota 8, Michigan Tech 0
Minnesota Duluth 4, St. Cloud State 2
Denver 4, Minnesota State 2

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WCHA First Round: Saturday Preview

I don't have time today to do a full preview so this is going to be an abbreviated version.

Wisconsin played better last night but they need to keep improving if they want to make a run in the NCAA tournament. Tonight is a great night for Scott Gudmandson to keep rolling and gain some momentum.

I haven't seen the lineups but I would assume that Wisconsin is going to send out the exact same roster card as they did last night. There is no way that Scott Gudmandson is not in the nets. He's our #1 and it's time for him to shine.

Flat out the PP needs to be better tonight. When you go 0-8 your not going to win many games in playoff time. We've got a good power play we just need better puck movement. I'm going to predict 2 PP goals tonight for Bucky.

The game is not being televised live tonight. The only TV is tape delay on the Wisconsin Channel at 10 or 10:30 or whatever.

Someone feel free to post the lineups in the comments section if you wish.

Go Badgers.

WCHA First Round Playoffs: Friday Recap

Wisconsin 4 vs Alaska-Anchorage 1
I don't think there is a player in the Wisconsin locker room that will tell you that they played their best hockey last night but sometimes when your as deep as the Badgers are you can win games on depth and raw ability alone. I think that was the case last night. Not a dominating performance but the defense kept Anchorage to low quality scoring opportunities and Scott Gudmandson was good enough to protect the win.

North Dakota 6 vs Minnesota 0
Flat out complete domination by the Sioux in this one. I said in one of my most recent bracketology articles that the Sioux are one of the two teams I flat out do not want to have to play right now. EVERY season North Dakota starts slow and Hakstol has them flying by March. North Dakota got on the board less than two minutes into the game when Dany Kristo, a Minnesota boy notched his 14th goal of the season and the Sioux never looked back. Eau Claire native Derrick LaPoint had 3 assists in the victory.

Minnesota State 5 vs St. Cloud 4-OT
This is an important series to watch for Badger fans. If we want to win the WCHA Final-Five, we want St. Cloud to win this series. If the Badgers and Huskies both make the final five they will play each other in a Friday semi-final. If St. Cloud doesn't make it, Wisconsin will end up playing against the Sioux and like I mentioned previously, I don't want to play them if we don't have to right now. Kael Mouillierat was the hero last night for the Mavericks who put together a very resilient effort in picking up the victory on the road. Minnesota State was down 3-0 to start the game and scored 3 third period goals to force overtime before the Mouillierat game winner :20 into overtime.

Denver 2 vs Michigan Tech 1
I bet this final was a bit closer than you all expected. Remember, this is still WCHA hockey and every team in the league has players that can make a difference. Tech got a solid goaltending performance from Josh Robinson and his 38 saves. If Tech wants to have a chance in this series their goaltenders are going to have to steal a game. Robinson put the Huskies in a position to win last night but Denver is just too good.

Minnesota-Duluth 3 vs Colorado College 2
One of the best match ups of the weekend, and it should be being that it's the #5 seed vs the #6 seed. This series is ooozing with importance for both clubs. Currently Duluth is the last team out of the tournament thanks to Bemidji State choking in the CHA playoffs last night which means a second CHA team will make the tournament. So Duluth obviously needs to pick up some wins to make a push up the ladder. Colorado College is sitting at 22 in the Pairwise which is too much ground to make up so they need to win the Final Five. Should be a great game tonight.

Wisconsin Hosting Anchorage In WCHA First Round

In case you weren't already aware, your 2009-2010 Wisconsin Badgers clinched second place in the treacherous WCHA over the weekend. I'd like to take a brief moment and congratulate our players on a great regular season.

But It's time to turn our attention to the next step, the playoffs. It starts this weekend when the Badgers host the Seawolves from Alaska Anchorage in a WCHA first round match up. It's a best of three series with a game on Sunday night if necessary.

Anchorage finished tied for 8th in the league but lost a tie breaker to Minnesota State, so they finished with the #9 seed in the playoffs. They are coming off of a home split against Minnesota-Duluth. They won on Friday 3-2, and lost on Saturday 6-3.

Wisconsin and Anchorage only played twice this season and that was at the Kohl Center back in mid-November. Wisconsin got the sweep winning games 5-1 and 6-2. Back in that series both teams played one goalie on Friday and the other on Saturday.

I'm going to assume that Anchorage is going to be starting Jon Olthuis in goal this weekend. He's got the majority of the starts this season (25) and has played in the last 3 games. He carries an 8-14-2 record with a 3.57 gaa and an .871 save percentage.

The Seawolves are led up front by the line of Josh Lunden, Alex Gellert, and Kevin Clark (pictured top left). There is no doubt about it, senior forward Kevin Clark is the key to beating Anchorage. You shut down Clark and you shut down the entire team. Clark has had an outstanding season that should finish with All-Conference honors. Clark has scored 23 goals this season, 14 more than any other Anchorage player.

Make no doubt about it, Wisconsin needs to get back on track this week and lay the lumber to Anchorage. Anchorage is a team that if you let them hang around, they will find ways to beat you. The Badgers need to show the fire that was lacked this past weekend and not even allow them a chance breath.

Predictions, Friday: 5-1 Badgers; Saturday: 4-3 Badgers.

We need to fill the Kohl Center and give our boys some home ice advantage. Face-Off Series ticket holders will have game 1 and game 3 as part of their season ticket package. Slap-Shot Series ticket holders will have game 2 as part of their season ticket package. There are still tickets available for the weekends series. I just put in for two tickets and got section 121 (blueline) and got row E. So there are plenty of good seats out there to be had.