The Wisconsin men’s hockey (1-5-2) team will play at home for the first time in two weeks to face the No. 3 Minnesota Gophers for the first time this season this weekend.
Wisconsin battled Notre Dame in their overtime loss last Friday, but bounced back against the Irish for a regulation win on Saturday in South Bend. Both freshman Ryan Botterill and graduate student Owen Lindmark scored their first goals of the season to put the Badgers ahead momentarily in the second period on Friday. The 2-3 OT loss came off of a power play goal from Notre Dame skater Cole Knuble.
The Badgers came back fighting on Saturday as they earned their first 2-1 regulation win since the Lindenwood series. Lindmark scored his second goal of the series, and junior Simon Tassy scored on the power play to keep Wisconsin ahead the rest of the game. It was Tassy’s first of the season, and all goals of the game were scored in the second period.
Wisconsin capitalized on power plays, where two goals were scored against Notre Dame on power plays. So, Wisconsin can have some hope against the powerful Minnesota penalty kill. The Badgers have dropped to 1.8 goals per game, while the aggressive Gophers offense averages 4.6 goals per game.
Wisconsin holds their 35.8 shots per game but can only convert on .049 percent of them. The Badger defense will need to work well with goalies sophomore William Gramme and senior Tommy Scarfone this weekend to balance out the fact that their opponents are converting on .133 percent of shots. The Badgers offense can expect to face Gopher goalies graduate student Liam Souliere and sophomore Nathan Airey.
Scarfone came away with his first win of the season on Saturday, holding a .885 save percentage on the season. Gramme didn’t play over the weekend, while head coach Mike Hastings kept Scarfone in net for both games. This was the first time this season that a Badgers goaltender played both nights in a single series.
Minnesota holds high-scoring skaters in Connor Kurth, Matthew Wood and Jimmy Clark which add to the high number of goals per game that the team has held throughout the start of this season. Wisconsin looks to their top scorers Quinn Finley, Gavin Morrissey and Ryan Mosley to push back.
