Badger Men Thoughts

I've had a lot of thoughts about the Badger men rattling around my head....some for just a day or two, and some thoughts have been formed over weeks or months of "internal debate". I'm going to post them in bullet form as they finally stream forth from my conciousness....

*I agree with Mike Eaves that Saturday's game was a step in the right direction for his club. They looked better and seemed to have gotten the "no scoring monkey" off their back.

*One of the reasons that the Badgers are struggling this year, in my opinion, is that there were no high level forward recruits from Wisconsin available to enter school at UW this year. While Eaves managed to bring a bunch of skilled forwards from the USNTDP when he first arrived, he and his staff are not having a lot of luck recruiting high-level forwards from outside Wisconsin. Of the next 6 forwards scheduled to arrive, 4 are from Wisconsin. Defensemen are another story completely. It seems like a who's who of defensemen coming in for the future. Why? I think other teams are using Wisconsin's great defensive system against them when they try to recruit forwards. The flip side of that is UW seems to have their pick of defensemen. You would think that forwards would want to get better defensively to improve themselves, but I can see how that would be a tough sell to a 15/16/17 year old.

*UW's coaching staff has been great at not "overspending" scholarship money. This is another reason that I think in-state recruits are vital to the program. My guess is that many Wisconsin kids play for less scholarship money than they could receive elsewhere. That is due partially to the fact that in-state tuition is less than out of state tuition so both the student and the UW get a bit of a deal. Also, I think kids are just willing to take less scholarship money to play where they grew up dreaming of playing. While this ultimately strengthens the program, I sometimes wonder if this means that Wisconsin kids are being taken advantage of to some extent. As an example I have heard from a very good source that one of the Wisconsin players on the team currently entered on a "books" scholarship. This means he received a 7% scholarship in his first season, which is enough to cover the cost of books. What kind of other offers did this player have? He could have gone on a full scholarship to another WCHA school (one at a lower level than Wisconsin). I realize that full scholarships typically are not 100%, but whatever this school's full offer was, it was certainly more than 7%. Who knows, maybe this player is very happy with his choice, and maybe he has even been able to get more scholarship money than was promised (this often happens when a player leaves or all the scholarship money doesn't get used). Maybe none of the Wisconsin kids ever feel they are being taken advantage of, and I'm just crazy...but it is something that has crossed my mind.

*Ben Street is -10 (the second worst plus/minus on the team is -4). Ben Grotting has 7 penalties for 25 minutes during his limited playing time in 8 games. Blake Geoffrion has 12 minor penalties for 24 minutes in 12 games. Getting these three stats "fixed" might go a long way towards helping the Badgers regain their footing.

*I'm shocked Zach Bearson can't crack the lineup. He's a guy who I believe played 3 years in the USHL, and even played in some international tournaments. He was also a captain for Waterloo and was a lower-round NHL draft pick.