Good night Badgers, good luck seniors

This time last year, I was marveling at the same result that I am writing about today: a first round Badger exit from the NCAA hockey tournament.

I'm well known for knocking heavily on teams, and even more hated for knocking on the teams that I love. However this year's badger class deserves to be hit hard. Believe me, that is what they are going to get.

I'm a firm believer that in hockey, the coach is more out of the game than any other sport. Think about it: in the NFL the players wear cleats. If the coach wanted to come in and play QB there is nothing stopping him. In hockey, the coach doesn't have skates. He's the ultimate motivator while also being the ultimate peep looker. His words are magic in the locker room, but meaningless on the ice. So the coach had better be sure that each player understands their role on the ice, or the coach will be answering questions about the loss off the ice.

That pretty much sums up today's loss to UND. It's a tough one because it sends a really good senior class to graduation and the NHL. I don't know that it sends our best forward, Nic Kerdiles, to Anaheim. However it does send Mark Zengerle to a place where he is not Mr. Assist. That's a problem for Kerdiles.

So with that we begin with our Hobey nominated goaltender. His name is Joel Rumpel and he is from Canada. His nation of origin doesn't really matter, but his on ice character does. Joel is not the best goalie WI has ever seen. He's also not the worst. He's a guy who is big and uses that size to play his opponents. While he's looking tall and big, the opposing team is finding seams. Joel gives up quite a bit of room due to his flexibility issues. If he get's the puck square to the chest, you'll need a sniper to get him. A rebound requires a tap and the score changes. Joel has problems keeping the team in the game when he's the only guy available to do so. He showed that tonight, and WI fans everywhere will hope that NCAA basketball will be much kinder to the Badgers.

Defense is a hit and miss for Wisconsin. When they are on, they can stop anything from getting to the net. This shut down style program has enabled Joel Rumpel to move past his peers and become nominated for the Hobey Baker award. If you could award the Hobey to a certain part of the team, the WI defensive corps would get it. They have kept the badgers from certain death many times. When they lose a game, it's because the defense was not able to handle the load.

This brings in our offense. I love offense in a college hockey game. The implication of a hockey offense is a team sport. You need to dump off the puck to your defensive unit to cycle the puck. The offense must also be tactful in using every skater to their advantage. The one line unit of Zengerle, Kerdiles, and Barnes was not enough to keep the badgers hot.

So why did WI lose? They key is to watch where North Dakota didn't score to figure out where WI faulted. The biggest showing was the point in the game where the UND player ran into Rumpel. The goal was called off but Rumpel let the goal in anyways. You could see that Joel didn't have the form to hold fast like he needed to. However this is a team game.

The defense can be credited for the fifth and fatal blow by Rocco Grimaldi. Somehow, he penetrated all six WI players to break away towards an empty net. This shows that WI was not available to play defensively tonight. They lacked speed, motivation and maturation.

On the offense, WI was a joke. They didn't play well at all. Pucks on the net were worthless. The cycle was not implemented well, and it showed.

So for tonight we can really see that WI was not ready to play like the #5 ranked team in the nation. They were ready to play the the #17 team, which is probably where they should have been.