Wisconsin women’s hockey dominates vs. No. 3 Minnesota, expects a tough game Sunday

MADISON – On senior day, against one of the best women’s hockey teams in the country, Wisconsin had a chance to wrap up its 10^th WCHA regular-season championship Saturday.

Might as well seal it all with a rout.

“I think regardless of the outcome today, there’s already so many emotions with senior day across the board, but I think we did a really good job of focusing in once the game started and kind of shutting those emotions out,” senior center Casey O’Brien said after the top-ranked Badgers erupted for an 8-2 victory over No. 3 Minnesota.

“And then I think right away, in the first period, we like felt just like we were playing so much lighter than maybe the past few weekends, and everything was clicking. And so there’s really no better way to end senior day than with a regular-season title. And so I think we’re all just happy that we kind of found our game again and played really well today.”

Wisconsin (28-1-2, 22-1-2 WCHA) suffered its only loss in November to No. 2 Ohio State. The past two weekends, though, the Badgers have played to a 2-2 tie with St. Cloud State and edged Minnesota Duluth, 2-1, in a pair of games, the second in overtime.

“Sometimes you kind of get the dog days of winter, and the season’s so long, so sometimes that just catches up too,” O’Brien said of the previous two weekends. “But I also think, like St. Cloud and Duluth play a really physical, really hard game, and so sometimes that slows the game down for us and can get us frustrated. And so I think things just opened up a little bit today for us.”

Wisconsin’s Casey O’Brien, Laila Edwards lead nation in scoring

Twelve Badgers figured in the scoring. Junior right wing Laila Edwards got UW on the scoreboard first at 4:01 of the first period and, like O’Brien, finished with two goals. Edwards added two assists, and junior left wing Kirsten Simms also had a four-point game with four assists.

Edwards is the leading goal scorer in NCAA Division I with 28 plus 31 assists, and O’Brien leads overall scoring with 62 points on 20 goals and 42 assists.

“I thought the energy level was high being senior day, knowing there’s a lot of energy in the building,” coach Mark Johnson said. “So can we get off to a good start from the get-go?

“Other than maybe the first power play that we had early in the game, we played well. I was looking for 60 consecutive minutes of play and got most of that probably. I wasn’t expecting eight goals.”

Sophomore goaltender Ava McNaughton made 18 saves on 20 Minnesota shots on goal, one in the first period that made it 2-1 and the other early in the third period that made it 7-2.

UW celebrates with pictures … and a surprise

Afterward the Badgers accepted the trophy from WCHA commissioner and posed for photos at center ice, although Edwards initially was caught off guard.

“I think I knew a couple days ago,” she said, “but during the game, I didn’t even think about it, so I was ready to get off the ice, and I see this big silver thing coming on.”

Wisconsin women’s hockey team has three games left in the regular season

Minnesota (22-7-1, 16-6-1) and Wisconsin wrap up their season series at noon Sunday. UW swept the series in Minneapolis in October, 5-0 and 4-3.

Saturday’s game was reminiscent of the first game of the Badgers’ January series against No. 2 Ohio State, when UW won, 6-0, at LaBahn. Then the teams played two nights later at Wrigley Field, where they tied and OSU won the shootout.

“We know they’re going to come all hard tomorrow,” Edwards said. “No one likes to get beat 8-2, especially the Gophers, when you’re rivals. So we just got to be ready for tomorrow. And I think if we play like that, we can beat any team.”

Then Wisconsin has a weekend off before finishing its WCHA regular season Feb. 21-22 against Bemidji State in Bemidji, Minnesota.