The top-ranked Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team will face its first true challenge of the young season this weekend, hosting No. 4 Minnesota Duluth for a Saturday-Sunday series at LaBahn Arena. This series marks the WCHA opener for the Bulldogs, while Wisconsin took both games from Bemidji State to start the season with two conference wins.
Both the Badgers and Bulldogs are coming off similar weekends, with No. 1 Wisconsin (4-0 overall, 2-0 WCHA) sweeping Maine with back-to-back 5-0 wins, and Minnesota
Duluth (4-0 overall, 0-0 WCHA) blanking Syracuse for consecutive 4-0 victories.
Wisconsin beat Minnesota Duluth in all five matchups last season, including a 3-1 victory in the WCHA Final Faceoff to advance to the title game, but the last three meetings away from Madison were among the toughest games for the Badgers all year. Coach Johnson and his squad shipped up to Duluth in February and found themselves in a rock fight. Wisconsin escaped game one with an overtime victory thanks to a late winner from Kirsten Simms and clawed back with two third-period goals to win game two.
The main reason for the tough games against Minnesota Duluth? That would be standout goaltender Ève Gascon, who returns for her junior year as the Bulldog backstop. Gascon is one of those players that any hockey fan should feel fortunate to watch. She’s fearless in the crease, which nullifies the mental advantage the Badgers have over just about any other goaltender.
While Wisconsin goalie Ava McNaughton took home the Hockey Commissioners Association Goalie of the Year award in 2024-25, it was Gascon who was recognized as the WCHA Goaltender of the Year. She is one of the few netminders who has been able to slow down the Wisconsin offense, and might be the only player capable of rendering McNaughton the second-best goaltender on the ice any given night.
With that in mind, Wisconsin will need to limit Minnesota Duluth’s scoring opportunities. The Bulldogs struck first in each of the last three games, but the Badgers buckled down and held them to just one goal each time. With a goalie like Gascon, the Badgers can’t afford to play from behind and allow the Bulldogs to pack it in around their backstop. In fact, getting on the board early would help Wisconsin dial up the pressure with Minnesota Duluth in scramble mode, something they didn’t have to do in any of the prior three match-ups.
The Badgers’ roster has seemingly never been short on scoring, but this year it seems they’re even more well-rounded than last year’s record-breaking championship team. Senior Kirsten Simms is still getting used to playing with newcomer Adéla Šapovalivová, who replaces Casey O’Brien as the top center. But Wisconsin features three lines of scoring depth that can break a game wide open, and a fourth line more than capable of holding their own.
And that’s not even accounting for the defensive scoring output from Caroline Harvey, the best two-way player in women’s hockey, and Laila Edwards, last year’s NCAA-leading scorer, who is now spending some time on the blue line to start the year. The best way to beat Gascon is to overwhelm her from all angles, and the Badgers are built to do just that.
Another small-yet-noteworthy difference from last year’s meetings—Wisconsin is no longer a unanimous number one. The Badgers have been the unanimous top-ranked team since October 15, 2024, a streak that covered 24 weeks of new poll releases and ran for nearly a full calendar year. The one dissenting vote went to No. 2 Ohio State, which swept then-No. 10 Colgate on the road last weekend.
The Badgers can try to win over that voter with an impressive performance against a top-five opponent at home this weekend, and if all else fails, they will have ample opportunity against the Buckeyes later this year. If it’s anything like the last three years, they may be on a collision course to go head-to-head for the NCAA Championship for the fourth time in as many years.
Game Info
Date: October 11-12
Time: Saturday – 11:00 a.m. | Sunday – 1:00 p.m.
Place: Madison, WI | LaBahn Arena
TV: B1G+ | Radio: 1070 AM
