It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not unusual to see teams getting shut down defensively, being forced to make their way through clogged passing lanes and take fewer shots when No. 13 Wisconsin is playing.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just not usually the Badgers who are facing those difficulties.<\/p>\n
Ninth ranked St. Cloud State\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sophomore Jase Weslosky recorded 24 saves on as many shots, while classmate Andreas Nodl had a goal and an assist as the fifth-seeded Huskies put the clamp down on six-seed Wisconsin, 3-0, Friday night in Game 1 of their WCHA playoff series at the National Hockey Center.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think everyone on the planet was anticipating a one-goal game,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d St. Cloud State coach Bob Motzko said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a team effort tonight on defense.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Huskies dominated play during the first period, taking the lion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s share of the quality scoring opportunities and forcing Wisconsin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shane Connelly to be sharp right from the get go.<\/p>\n
Five-and-a-half minutes into the game, Wisconsin junior Ben Street was sent off for holding, and about 30 seconds later, sophomore Blake Geoffrion joined him in the penalty box after a tripping call during the penalty kill, giving St. Cloud State a long 5-on-3 chance. Connelly stood tall while the Wisconsin defense played well in front, smothering the Huskies\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 opportunity.<\/p>\n
It appeared to give Wisconsin the life they needed to take charge.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought we could start rolling from there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Connelly said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was huge to start the game with a 5-on-3 kill. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to be able to jumpstart something from there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, St. Cloud was settling in with a game plan similar to that usually employed by the Badgers: tight defense, tight defense, tight defense.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re such a good team when it comes to eliminating chances,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nodl said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You rarely get a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGrade A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 chance with them. You rarely get a good rebound, and they rarely make mistakes. As long as you work hard to try and create chances you have an opportunity to find succeed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
A second power play opportunity in the period presented the Huskies with the opening they needed to notch that first goal, always important when defense is the name of the game. A wrister from junior John Swanson from the top of the slot evaded Connelly with less than a minute to play in the first period.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not known for shooting the puck way up there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Connelly said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It took me a little by surprise. I thought I had it, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of the way the night ended up going.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Badgers had perhaps their best opportunity to pull back into things during the second period, where they loosed 10 shots on Weslosky, but the sophomore held his own throughout.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have to keep yourself ready,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Weslosky said, referring to a relatively easy first period being followed by a tougher second. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have to be ready to stop a shot no matter what the case is, whether you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re getting two or 10 in a period.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Late in the period, sophomore Ryan Lasch — who took the WCHA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scoring crown with 34 points in the regular season — made it a 2-0 game with a quick chip shot in front of Connelly that went in on the stick side.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a chance to see Lasch coming out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Connelly said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was there and I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t able to get a good read on who it was in front. It was such a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbang-bang\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 play.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Two power-play opportunities in the third period were insufficient to bring Wisconsin back into the game, and Weslosky completed his shutout effort, his 3rd of the year. Nodl added a one-timer on the power-play midway through the period to essentially seal the deal for St. Cloud State.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The whole team knows what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at stake,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nodl said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We know that if we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t win this series, our season is going to be done. Scoring\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never really been a problem, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been our defensive effort. If we can keep things going like this we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be in really good shape.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
For the Badgers, the series itself presented a bit of a challenge — it was their action in two weeks following a bye during the last week of the regular season, and it was in the exact same building against the very same team that they had completed their campaign against.<\/p>\n
“You can blame it a bit on the week off, but I don’t buy that personally,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Street said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We could have done a better job. We made a few mistakes that maybe you make after not playing for a week, but we prepared for this series. We come back into this building, and we had a pretty good weekend here last time. It’s just different every time you come here and it was really frustrating tonight.”<\/p>\n
The win put the Huskies just one win away from their third consecutive Final Five appearance.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The defense in front was fantastic,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Weslosky said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been phenomenal the last couple of games. They probably had as many blocked shots as I had saves tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The series continues Saturday night at the National Hockey Center.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see a completely different energy level (from Wisconsin) tomorrow night,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Motzko said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I get the feeling they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be much better tomorrow.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not unusual to see teams getting shut down defensively, being forced to make their way through clogged passing lanes and take fewer shots when No. 13 Wisconsin is playing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just not usually the Badgers who are facing those difficulties. Ninth ranked St. Cloud State\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sophomore Jase Weslosky recorded 24 saves on as many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8864"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}