MADISON – Compete. Battle. Work.
The offseason allowed the Wisconsin males’s hockey crew to get again to these fundamentals of the sport. That grind occurs each and every offseason, however this time there used to be an edge and depth to the lawsuits that incorporates a bunch itching to turn out itself after a disappointing season.
More than one participant famous the crew had a chip on its shoulder, and it confirmed.
“Our biggest thing is our work level and our compete level is top notch, the highest I’ve seen it in five years here,” senior captain Dominick Mersch mentioned. “We’re off to a great start and now the goal is to be consistent and keep that going.”
That edge comes with an optimism according to a few elements: the chance to construct on what veterans of the crew really feel used to be a cast end to final season, and an infusion of skill off the recruiting path and switch portal geared toward addressing the crew’s shortcomings on offense.
UW dropped from being the Big Ten champion in 2021 to a fifth-place tie final season that used to be only a half-game forward of last-place Michigan State. The Badgers completed 10-24-3 general and 6-17-1 within the Big Ten.
Can the Badgers upward push within the standings as briefly as they fell? We’ll start to get some solutions Friday and Saturday all over UW’s season-opening sequence at Ohio State, which is ranked No. 14 in america Today/USA Hockey Magazine ballot
“Last year was a tough year for all of us,” UW trainer Tony Granato mentioned. “We didn’t replace what we lost so we chased it all year, and when you don’t have the horse to chase it, you have a year that you have to kind of struggle through. We struggled through the year.
“This year is a new start. We’ve got our players in place and we’re going to have a good year, an exciting year, and move forward.”
Many of the Badgers’ problems last season stemmed from scoring the puck.
They ranked last in Big Ten play in goals scored and goals allowed. They were also last in shot percentage. They dipped to fifth in power-play percentage after excelling at that the year before and were last in faceoff percentage.
Some of those issues should improve with experience. Junior Mathieu De St. Phalle, sophomore Corson Ceulemans and senior Brock Caufield, the team’s top three scorers from last season, are back.
Granato fortified that group with a handful of skilled players on the front and blue lines.
Freshman Charlie Stramel, a projected first-round NHL draft pick next spring, and Cruz Lucius, who was taken in the fourth round of the draft by Carolina last spring, are freshmen who come to UW from the U.S. national team developmental program. Ty Smilanic, a 2021 third-round draft pick by Florida whose rights are owned by Montreal, comes to UW from Quinnipiac, where he scored 27 goals and totaled 44 points in two seasons.
“They’re pretty skilled guys and they’re highly touted guys,” Mersch said. “That is really cool, adding some top-notch talent. They were brought in to help us score more goals and help us be more offensive this year.”
Granato also added two offensive defensemen in freshmen Ben Dexheimer and Tyson Jugnauth. Jugnauth was a British Columbia Hockey League all-star last season and a 2022 fourth-round NHL pick by Seattle. Dexheimer comes to UW from the Madison Capitals of the United State Hockey League.
“You upload the items that we added at the again finish to transport the puck another way than our blue has in a very long time,” Granato said “Jugnauth, Dexheimer, two youngsters who got here in, are simply nice puck-holding offensive defensemen. We mentioned scoring, the ones two guys are going to get the puck to our forwards so much.”
Those newcomers join a team that returning players feel showed improvement late in the season.
That said, those outside of the Wisconsin program are taking a wait-and-see approach. UW is picked to finish fourth in the Big Ten behind Minnesota, Notre Dame and Michigan.
The Badgers also didn’t receive any votes in the USA Today/US Hockey Magazine or USCHO polls.
The Badgers get a chance to prove themselves on the ice, a challenge De St. Phalle can’t wait to start.
“I lose sleep some nights I am getting so excited, particularly after final 12 months,” he mentioned. “I think we showed what we can do toward the end of the year. This is a winning program. This is Badger hockey. I think we really want to get back to that standard and we all have a lot of faith (that we can) because of how hard we worked this summer.”