History can be the most formidable of foes.
Wisconsin learned that lesson — again — this weekend, as the Gophers men’s hockey team swept the series soundly and surely, winning 4-1 and 7-0 and pushing its home winning streak over the Badgers to 10 games.
“It was one of those good old-fashioned fanny kickings that only happen every once in a while,” Minnesota coach Doug Woog said. “It’s either a feast or a famine, and tonight we had a feast. But we’ve had our share of famine, so we kind of appreciate this more than a normal situation.”
The Gophers have feasted more often than not against Wisconsin. But if the Badgers ever seemed assured of bucking that trend, it was this weekend. They owned a nation-best 13-game unbeaten streak, hadn’t lost a WCHA road game all season and sat atop the league standings.
The Gophers, meanwhile, had struggled to carve out even the tiniest niche of consistency all season. Their ship was seemingly in shape after sweeping Minnesota-Duluth at home two weeks ago, but more than a few leaks sprung during a sweep at the hands of Michigan Tech last weekend.
But somehow, under the most unlikely circumstances, Minnesota emerged from months of mediocrity and put together its finest back-to-back efforts of the season.
With a full slate of defensemen on the blue line and a handful of forwards who rediscovered their shooting touch, the Gophers looked like a team that doesn’t belong on the dark side of .500 for the first time this year.
That left Badgers coach Jeff Sauer scratching his head. He said after the opener that he didn’t see that kind of game coming. And on Saturday, he searched for positives in a series where, for Wisconsin, there were few.
“They beat us in every category,” Sauer said. “But we’re in a lot better shape than they are, we’re still near the top and fighting for a championship, and that’s what we’ll do.
“It’s not a crisis at all. We’ve got a lot more bodies than they do. They just used them a lot better than we did.”
That’s usually the case in this series. Eventually, Wisconsin is bound to end its run of futility in Minnesota, but until it does, the Gophers’ confidence level against this team will continue to soar.
Woog can sympathize with a team that’s in the middle of an unexplainable losing streak. He knows that, sometimes, the harder a team tries to scratch its way out of a hole, the deeper it digs.
“That’s why coaches say, ‘One game at a time,'” Woog said. “You can emphasize that a game is really important, but you build it up so big that when you lose you fall way down.
“Then you try the soft approach, and when that doesn’t work you don’t know what the hell to do. I’m sure he’s tried everything he can think of. It’s horrible to be on the other side of those things, because it’s just no fun.”
Wisconsin is strong at all key positions, and likely will, as Sauer said, challenge North Dakota and St. Cloud State for the WCHA championship. But as has so often been the case, the Gophers played a major role in determining the Badgers’ destiny.
“If they could have beaten us half the time,” Woog said, “they probably would have finished first more often, and that would have been tough on us.
“We’ve been fortunate, yes.”