Wow, UW hockey was pretty good once, wasn't it? Has it been down the last 21 years or just been missing out?
It's sort of a weird thing.
They used to be in the WCHA, which was an impossibly stacked conference. So they were often right near the top, but usually close to the top. They also almost never won the conference tournament, but made a lot of hay in the actual tournament. Like, since 1983, they have three titles and two runner up finishes, but only two conference titles before this year. (In 2010, they were second in the conference, third in the conference tournament by way of beating the 1 seed, finished as national runners up)
They also had kind of a weird run. Jeff Sauer had kind of gotten a little stale in the early 2000s. UW always got talent, wasn't super consistent. They replaced him with Mike Eaves, who got a ton of talent, but the program just had wild swings. After winning a title in year 4, they went to four tournaments total in eight years, and I think needed a magical run for the last one. They always had young high end talent that left early and struggled to get those three-year guys who aren't top talents, but are great college players.
Then the bottom fell out Eaves' last two years. They hired a decorated alum, and he had been mostly unimpressive in four years.
