The Wisconsin men’s hockey (1-5-0) team travels to South Bend, Indiana, to face the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (4-2-0) after being swept by Denver University in their two-game series over the weekend.
The Badgers only scored three goals compared to Denver’s 10 over the weekend. Wisconsin sophomore Quinn Finley scored two goals in two days and kept himself as the team’s point leader. Finley has only two assists on the season but scored on a powerplay for the Badger’s only goal on Saturday.
Morrissey had the other goal on Friday, assisted by graduate student Ryland Mosley, who’s behind Finley and Morrissey on the scoresheet, notching an assist on each goal scored on Friday. Senior goaltender Tommy Scarfone played Friday, and sophomore goaltender William Gramme played Saturday, both averaging a 0.855 save percentage
Wisconsin is averaging 34.5 shots per game but still holds a .048 shot percentage. Their opponents carry a .149 shot percentage and still hold the advantage of power play conversions over the Badgers. A relief found amid the slow start to the season is the 35 penalty minutes amassed since game one of the regular season as opposed to the 54 the Badgers can draw from their opponents.
The Badgers fell out of the polls in the NCAA rankings, while Denver stays at No. 1 and Notre Dame lands at No. 19.
The Badgers head to South Bend to play Notre Dame and look to continue their four-game win streak against the Irish with the Badgers winning all four games in the 2023-24 season. Disregarding last Saturday, Notre Dame has kept their opponents scoring only one-to-two goals per game. Wisconsin needs to start and finish each period strong to stand a chance against that powerful defense.
Notre Dame is 5-16 on powerplay conversions, if the Badgers penalty kill can stop the strength of the Fighting Irish powerplay, they may be able to scrape by a win or two in the Big Ten and move away from their poor 1-6-0 record.
Game one will start at 6 p.m. CST on Friday and 5 p.m. CST on Saturday at Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend.
