Friday, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers (0-4-1 Big Ten, 2-10-2 overall) face the Michigan Wolverines (2-1-2 Big Ten, 7-4-3 Overall) at Michigan. The Badgers are coming off a close 1-2 loss to Penn State this week, while Michigan won in a close game 1-0 against Notre Dame in their last outing.
The Badgers are looking to spark the rest of their season with a win against a balanced Michigan team. Last year the Badgers beat Michigan by one in a close game in their first contest, and then lost by one in the Big Ten Tournament.
This matchup has a history of being extremely close.
Michigan will be hosting the game, which poses as a disadvantage for the Badgers. The Badgers have an away record of 0-4-0 as well, so this road game will be quite the challenge.
Badger scoring leaders, Inaki Iribarren and Matthew Comiskey--who combined have scored 4 goals with 10 points--need to continue their scoring output to upset Michigan. The Badgers have yet to win a conference game this year and they hope this game will change that.
This season has not been ideal for the Badgers and lack of offensive consistency has not helped. The team has only scored nine goals this season while allowing 22 goals against. That equates to about 0.64 goals a game for Wisconsin, while opponents have scored approximately 1.57 goals per game.
Michigan has scored 21 goals this season while allowing only 11 goals against. They have only allowed 7 shots per game which is the Badgers shot-on-goal average. So, Michigan poses as a tough competition for a struggling Badger team.
A sudden change of pace with offensive and defensive aggression must occur for the Badgers to put up a fighting chance.
