Playing hockey like it's 2006
May 16, 2016 | Men's Hockey, Andy Baggot
2005-06 NCAA season casts long shadow on NHL Conference Finals
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BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — If you're watching the Stanley Cup semifinals and having flashbacks to the last time the Wisconsin men's hockey team won a NCAA title, there's a good reason for the déjà vu. Â
All four NHL clubs have prominent — almost eerie — reminders of that memorable 2005-06 season for the Badgers.
The St. Louis-San Jose series that will decide the Western Conference finalist has four links and two hit close to home.
Blues goaltender Brian Elliott and Sharks center Joe Pavelski were stars for UW that season.
Elliott won 27 games as a junior All-American and was the Hobey Baker Award runner-up after setting single-season program records for save percentage (.938), goals against average (1.55) and shutouts (eight). Pavelski, meanwhile, was a sophomore center when he led the Badgers in scoring with 23 goals, 33 assists and 56 points.
Two of Elliott's teammates in St. Louis played major roles for Western Collegiate Hockey Association antagonists that season.
Winger David Backes led Minnesota State in scoring and guided the Mavericks to a late-season series sweep that ultimately cost Wisconsin the MacNaughton Cup as WCHA regular-season titlists.
Center Paul Stastny led Denver in scoring in '05-06 as the Pioneers, thanks in part to a series sweep in Madison, finished in a second-place tie with UW.
Another member of that 10-year-old Denver club, defenseman Chris Butler, has played five games with the Blues this season.
The Pittsburgh-Tampa Bay series that will determine the Eastern Conference finalist features five connections to the season that saw the Badgers win the sixth national title in program history.
Pittsburgh has winger Phil Kessel, who grew up in Madison, but spurned UW in favor of WCHA archrival Minnesota. The Gophers wound up winning the MacNaughton Cup thanks in part to a series sweep in Madison — a weekend in which Kessel scored a goal and mocked fans at the Kohl Center for booing him — but the Badgers got the last laugh.
While UW wound up wearing the national crown, the top-seeded Gophers lost in overtime to Holy Cross in one of the most shocking upsets in NCAA tournament history.
The Lightning, meanwhile, have all sorts of reminders of that remarkable season for UW fans.
Defenseman Matt Carle, another Denver product, won the Hobey Baker Award instead of Elliott in '06.
Another Tampa Bay defenseman, Jason Garrison, was a budding standout for Minnesota-Duluth, which split its only regular-season series with the Badgers in 2005-06.
Ben Bishop, the starting goaltender for the Lightning, played at Maine and faced the Badgers in the NCAA Frozen Four semifinal at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. Pavelski centered a line that accounted for three goals and Elliott made 32 saves during a 5-2 victory. Bishop was credited with 35 saves.
Tampa Bay center Brian Boyle played at Boston College and spent chunks of the NCAA championship game trying to defend against Pavelski and Co. The Badgers prevailed 2-1.
Two more subtle links:
Peter Harrold, a defenseman in the St. Louis farm system, played for BC in that '06 title match and is remembered for having his last-second shot carom off the post behind Elliott.
San Jose strength and conditioning coach Mike Potenza had the same position for the UW men's and women's hockey teams in 2005-06. Both won national titles and remain the only clubs to sweep the crowns in the same season.
