MADISON – After Caroline Harvey left for the Olympics last week, the defense of the Wisconsin women’s hockey team needed to lean on a capable yet unassuming veteran.
Vivian Jungels answered the bell.
The headline that was grabbed from the senior defender’s effort, however, focused on the two goals and three points she generated in the series finale at Minnesota on Jan. 31.
The meat and potatoes of her performance came in the often statistic-less world of defense where the reigning WCHA defender of the week helped limit the quality of the Gophers’ chances which allowed the Badgers to leave town with four of the six points from the series.
“She’s a quiet leader,” Badgers coach Mark Johnson said. “In her game, you might not notice a lot of things from an offensive standpoint, but as coaches look at films and you do ratings and you evaluate different players on your squad, a lot of the little things that you need from a defenseman, she’s able to do.”
Top-ranked Wisconsin (24-2-2, 18-2-2 WCHA, 57 points) will need Jungels at the top her game Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 7-8, when No. 2 Ohio State visits La Bahn Arena. The matchup will mark the 14th and 15th straight times the Badgers and Buckeyes have met as the nation’s two top-ranked teams.
A series win for UW puts it in excellent position to grab the WCHA regular-season title. The Badgers lead Ohio State by two points with two series remaining against sixth-place Minnesota State on Feb. 13-14 and seventh-place St. Cloud State on Feb. 21-22.
Jungels’ two-goal performance at Minnesota was first of career
Jungels has had a knack for standout games against Minnesota. The only three-point games of her career came against the Gophers this season in a 7-2 win Nov. 1 and a 6-1 victory Jan. 31. And if you look at Jungels’ top single-game totals for blocks, her top performances as a freshman, junior and senior came against Minnesota.
But with both teams short-handed due to the Olympics, there is an opportunity for Jungels to have a greater impact on the game against the Buckeyes, too.
“I think it’s kind of an opportunity for everyone to step it up a little bit and I think we can just grow together as a team and become a deeper team and just take advantage of the opportunity,” she said.
Blocks one of the marks of Vivian Jungels’ game
Jungels’ biggest flex is her plus/minus rating and blocks. Her +46 rating is second on the Badgers to senior Lacey Eden and her 38 blocks lead the team.
The blocks are part skill, part toughness. Either way the job comes with a measure of pain though sometimes Jungels, who is from Edina, Minn., feels it more than others.
“I think in a game you have the adrenaline in you, so it’s not bad at all in a game,” she said. “In practice it’s a bit different … I think overall you’re just trying to do the small things to try to get the team going from the back end and hopefully it goes up to the forward end.”
The block is the type of gritty play that could set the tone for the Badgers, who not only are missing Harvey due to the Olympics but also goaltender Ava McNaughton.
Ohio State ranks third in the nation (behind UW and Minnesota) in scoring with 4.57 goals per game. Last week in the Buckeyes’ first series without leading scorer and Olympian Joy Dunne, they put up nine goals in two games versus then-No. 8 Minnesota Duluth.
UW’s 32 blocks in its sweep of Ohio State on Dec 5-6 were its second-highest total for a series this season. Wisconsin might need a similar effort to remain this week to help protect freshman goalie Rhyah Stewart, who is set to make her third WCHA start.
“(There is) the willingness to do it one and then the competitiveness to execute it because a lot of times when somebody’s going to shoot a puck at you, your natural reflex is to shy away from it,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to get hit with that puck because it hits me in a certain spot it’s not going to feel very good.
“So between her and a couple other players on her team you see some consistencies with that. So all of a sudden if they’re looking to get a scoring opportunity and you need to be in a position to block a shot she’s going to try and do it. Whatever pain I’m going to endure I’m going to try to do it to help the team win.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Skill, toughness and some pain part of job for Wisconsin hockey blocks leader Vivian Jungels
Reporting by Mark Stewart, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
