BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — Annie Pankowski devoted a good chunk of her week getting ready for midterm exams in organic chemistry and physics.
"Two easy ones," she said sarcastically. "It's going to be putting my head down and getting to work."
Once those are out of the way, Pankowski, the junior right winger for the Wisconsin women's hockey team, will turn her attention to another major project.
The top-rated Badgers (14-1-1 overall) host second-ranked Minnesota (13-1-2) in a Western Collegiate Hockey Associations series Saturday and Sunday at LaBahn Arena.
It's the latest chapter in a Border Battle that features schools that have won a combined 10 national championships — four for UW — and have met in the last three NCAA Frozen Four semifinals.
Pankowski may have had to psyche herself up to take those exams, but as far as tangling with a respected archrival?
"It's Minnesota," she said. "There's not much more to say."
What Pankowski will say is that she feels much better about the matchup than she did a month ago when she was blindsided by a goal-scoring slump.
Her goal-less streak reached nine games, spanning nearly two months, before she ended it with a flourish. Pankowski has six goals over the last three games, including two game-winners, a short-hander, an empty-netter, a power-play conversion and three while even strength.
Woven into those numbers was Pankowski's fourth career hat trick, which ranks fifth in program history.
Pankowski, from Laguna Hills, California, said a heightened sense of maturity brought her the needed patience to handle the slump.
"It's definitely about patience and definitely about growing a lot and it's definitely uncomfortable, but I got through it," she said.
The drought apparently snuck up on Pankowski.
The Badgers opened the season with an eight-game unbeaten streak in which Pankowski, owner of consecutive 20-goal seasons and the team's leading scorer as a freshman and sophomore, failed to register a conversion.
"I kind of didn't realize it until I was four, five, six games in and I was like, 'Something's wrong,'" she said.
Pankowski said she was getting to the right spots on the ice at the right time, but her world-class wrist shot wasn't finding the desired home.
It was missing the net, clipping a post or burrowing into the goaltender's pads.
"After game five, six or seven you start to get into your own head and you go, 'What's going on?'" she said.
Her coach, Mark Johnson, knows that feeling even though he scored a UW-record 125 career goals in 125 games and 219 more during an 11-year career in the NHL.
"When things aren't going well — or maybe the way you wanted them to go — you have to go out and work a little bit harder," he said.
Johnson reminded Pankowski that she was getting opportunities, which is typically a reason for optimism.
"A lot of good things were happening," he said. "It just wasn't showing up on the score sheet.
"If you look at the score sheet and it frustrates you, are you doing other things that help the team?"
Things like back-checking, blocking shots and making smart plays.
During the nine game goal-less streak, Pankowski showed 31 shots on goal, five assists, four blocked shots and was a combined plus-3.
Pankowski said a temporary change of scenery helped. She missed four Wisconsin games while helping Team USA win the gold medal in the Four Nations Cup in Finland.
The slump ended in explosive style shortly after Pankowski returned to the Badgers. One day after she was held pointless during a 4-1 setback to third-ranked Minnesota Duluth on Nov. 18 — the only loss for UW to date this season — she scored three straight goals to break a 1-1 tie against the Bulldogs.
"As I told her, the first one is the hardest, especially if you go five, six, seven games without scoring," Johnson said of Pankowski, who has 49 goals in 91 career outings. "Usually what happens is the first one comes and, all of a sudden, the second and third come a little bit easier."
Pankowski remembers the first one, set up by junior center Emily Clark, being pretty fluky.
"Em shot the puck 4 feet wide (of the net) and I just kind of reached my stick out there and (the puck) dropped right at my feet," Pankowski said. "I turned around and just one-timed it."
Pankowski followed up that outburst with three more conversions that helped spur a non-conference sweep of Cornell on Nov. 25 and 26.
What's it like to be in such a comfort zone?
"I'm just grateful that these pucks are going in the right places," Pankowski said.
"It's like a hitter in baseball," Johnson said. "Maybe the baseball comes in slower than in other times. It looks a little bit bigger.
"In hockey it's the same type of thing; the game slows down probably a little bit more when you're pressing and not scoring."
Pankowski is pressing no more, which is a good thing for her and the Badgers.
"If school's hard and hockey's hard, it's really hard to be happy," she said. "My friends have been great and supportive. So have my parents."
Now it's time for UW to measure itself against the defending national champions.
When Pankowski was a freshman, the Badgers were 0-4-1 in this rivalry, including a loss to Minnesota in the NCAA semifinals.
A year ago, the teams split six meetings, but again the Gophers got the last hurrah with an overtime victory in the NCAA semis.
"They bring a great game and we bring a great game," Pankowski said.
UW is expecting the return of standout senior goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens, she of the NCAA-record 44 career shutouts, back after she missed the last four games with an upper-body injury.
Pankowski likes the experience the Badgers have, especially at forward. Their top scorers are senior left winger Sarah Nurse (12 goals, 7 assists, 19 points) and senior center and captain Sydney McKibbon (4-10-14). Pankowski (6-6-12) and Clark (4-7-11) are right behind.
"We know what they're going to bring," Pankowski said of the Gophers, "and I'm really confident in the group that's returning that we kind of know how to handle the situation."
