Wisconsin and Ohio State face off after Harvard-Maine

The second game at the East Regional in Albany is only of passing interest to Crimson fans, unless Harvard manages to defeat Maine in the early game. In that case, Cambridge eyes will be glued to the outcome of the Ohio State-Wisconsin contest which starts at 8:30 p.m. and determines what team will face the Maine-Harvard winner.

The Buckeyes are the region’s No. 2 seed and enter Albany with a six-game winning streak. After going 26-15-0 and finishing the regular season in fourth place in the CCHA, Ohio State advanced to the CCHA championship by defeating Notre Dame and Miami in overtime. Next the Buckeyes beat Michigan 4-2 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, the Wolverines’ backyard.

Ohio State will face Wisconsin, who went 21-12-8 in the WCHA and finished the regular season in third place. The Badgers were upset in the opening round of the WCHA playoffs by Alaska-Anchorage and will have been idle for almost two weeks before the drop of the puck tonight. In fact, Wisconsin is the only team in the East regional that did not win its conference championship.

But despite the long layoff, the Badgers are still a dangerous team, according to Union coach Nate Leaman.

“Wisconsin is a very good system oriented team,” he said. “They have very good goaltending—they’re good in the defensive zone from the net on out.

“And they have some snipers,” he added.

Indeed they do, and Leaman is quite familiar with Wisconsin’s scorers. At the Badger Showdown, Wisconsin bludgeoned the Dutchmen 8-1 on only 35 shots. The Badgers’ strength in their defensive zone was also apparent; they limited Union to only 16 shots on goal. Most of the ones that got through were stopped by Bernd Brückler, the Badgers junior goaltender. Brückler was the top-rated goaltender in the WCHA, allowing an average of 2.11 goals against and stopping .928 percent of the shots sent his way. He also backstopped a defense tied for first in goals allowed this season.

Where the Badgers have excellent team defense, the Buckeyes have overall consistency. Their netminder, Mike Betz, posted solid but unspectacular numbers throughout the season. Their team defense—which allows 2.5 goals per game—and penalty kill are highly rated, but not tops in the CCHA. Where Ohio State excels, according to Colgate coach Stan Moore, is along in their offensive productions—they have five players with 30 or more points—and along their forward lines.

“There is some size involved [in the forwards], but Ohio State also has a fair amount of speed,” he said.

Moore should know; his Raiders hosted Ohio State at Starr Rink in late November and were both stymied offensively and outshot badly. Moore also saw firsthand the skill of the Buckeye’s forwards, particularly its seniors—Paul Caponigri, Scott May and Dave Stekel.

Having seen two of the East regional’s four teams, Moore isn’t entirely sure that there is a clear-cut favorite.

“At this juncture of the game…any team can win, any team can put their best foot forward,” he said.

—Staff writer Timothy M. McDonald can be reached at tmcdonal@fas.harvard.edu.