“There’s a real piece to sophomore slumps.”
That’s the way that Wisconsin coach Mike Hastings began to answer a question in his weekly press conference about Badgers forward Quinn Finley, who most decidedly is not experiencing that stereotypical setback.
After a 10-goal rookie campaign, Finley leads Wisconsin with 18 goals and 15 assists, and the sophomore is tied with Michigan State’s Isaac Howard for most goals per game nationally (.75).
Finley and linemates Gavin Morrissey at center and Ryan Mosley on the right wing have accounted for 38 of Wisconsin’s 75 total goals this season. The trio has a mix of experience and new energy – Mosley is a graduate student transfer from Michigan Tech and Morrissey is a freshman – that has helped the Badgers weather some rocky patches this season. The three have also combined for 12 of Wisconsin’s 20 power-play goals, seven of those scored by Finley.
Finley’s escape of the sophomore slump is something that Hastings attributes to the player himself, singling out “the work that Quinn put in this last summer, his personal expectations for himself, his consistency on the practice rink and the weight room.”
When Finley returned for his second season, said Hastings, “I thought confidence was oozing out of him no matter where he was at.”
Hastings added that he’s not surprised that Finley, who’s registered at least a point in all but four of the 24 games he’s played this season, returned ready to go from the start.
“I’m appreciative of all the work he put in and utilizing everything we have here at the university to help make himself better,” said Hastings, “but the one ingredient in that we don’t get to be a part of is the effort and the attitude that he’s put into it, so I’m happy for him having the success that he has.”
He added that Finley is “a guy who’s more worried about what’s out the windshield than what’s in the rearview mirror.”
That very Midwestern looking-through-the-windshield line applies to the entire Wisconsin team, too, as it struggles to reach the level of success it did last year. That sophomore slump thing feels an awful lot like what this Wisconsin team seems to have been fighting all season, collectively, in Hastings’ second year as the Badgers’ head coach, but Hastings is a classic no-rearview-mirrors kind of guy.
“You know, the page turns once you get to January,” said Hastings. “You’ve got people looking towards…a light at the end of the tunnel where it’s getting shorter every week.”
At this point last season, Wisconsin was 10-2-0 in Big Ten play and sitting in second place, four points behind Michigan State. Now as the available track shortens toward the end of January, the Badgers are tied for fourth place in the Big Ten standings with Michigan, the opponent they face at home this weekend. Each team has played 14 games and each has 20 points, a full 12 points behind first-place Michigan State.
Tied for points and conference win percentage (.476), there are some notable differences between the squads. Michigan is the No. 10 team in the country, sitting at 10th in the PairWise Rankings, too, with an overall record of 14-9-1. In Big Ten play, the Wolverines are 8-6-0 with four wins having come in overtime.
Wisconsin is 5-9-0 in B1G games with seven overtime contests and the variety of points that were earned in those. The Badgers are 10-12-0 overall and are 17th in the PairWise. Wisconsin’s PWR has improved this season; in the first half, the Badgers didn’t sit anywhere near the PWR bubble that they inhabit now.
Wisconsin and Michigan split a pair of games in Yost Ice Arena in mid-December, with the Badgers taking the first contest 4-0 and the Wolverines rebounding with a 3-2 overtime victory the following night.
While Hastings isn’t the type to look back, he of course knows the value of learning from the past. In prepping for the Wolverines, Hastings said there will be “a little bit of the old and the new” to view.
“In today’s world with what we can get on video availability, we watch every single game that Michigan’s played, and they can do the same to us,” said Hastings. “So you go and see if anything has changed, anything that really sticks out.”
He said that the Badgers will look at what worked for them that weekend as well as what Michigan’s been doing lately to succeed.
Hastings said that in the second half, the Badgers are “worried about ourselves and trying to get to our game as quick as possible while we give the respect that’s definitely due to Michigan and what they do.”
One thing the Badgers want to do is break a pattern of second-night setbacks. Last weekend at home, Wisconsin beat Long Island 6-3 Friday while Saturday’s game was a 2-2 tie with the Sharks coming from behind twice to tie the game. Dating back to the end of November, the Badgers are 5-1-0 in first games of two-game sets and 1-3-2 the following night.
Hastings says that it’s part of “human nature” to be “a little satisfied” after a good first game while perhaps forgetting that the team that lost that game is “a little irritated” and brings more the second night.
“For us,” said Hastings, “it’s growing in that maturation process of understanding immediacy, what’s going on right now and deal with that, and then understand [that] once that’s over, you put it in a box and it’s gone and go back to what it is in your daily.”
Hastings said the Badgers are looking forward to playing this rematch with Michigan at home for a number of reasons, including have the crowd on their side when the momentum swings in a game.
“And then just the benefit of [something] which we need to take care of and take advantage of is sleeping in your own bed at night and not getting on a plane and going somewhere and sleeping in a hotel room,” said Hastings.
The Badgers are 4-6-2 at home this season.
“We’ve got to make this place a difficult place to play,” said Hastings. “This year, at times we’ve done that and at times we haven’t.”
For what it’s worth, Finley and Mosley each had goals against Michigan in Wisconsin’s shutout win, and Morrissey had the goal that sent the Saturday game to OT.
Friday’s game between the Wolverines and Badgers begins at 7:00 p.m. CT. Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. puck drop will be televised by the Big Ten Network.
