The University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team (2-6-0, 0-4-0) hunts for their first win in Big Ten play this season as they travel to East Lansing, Michigan to take on the Michigan State Spartans (4-3-1, 0-1-1).
This marks the first time this season Wisconsin will play an unranked opponent. A weekend after being swept by No. 16 Penn State, it feels like the Badgers are catching a break by not playing one of the best teams in the nation.
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Just because they’re unranked, does not mean Michigan State is easy to beat. They’re coming off a good shootout win against No. 12 Notre Dame this past weekend and have some lethal skaters on the offensive end.
Their first line, consisting of junior Jagger Joshua, freshman Karsen Dorwart and freshman Daniel Russell, has been amazing early in the season. Joshua has four goals this season, leading the Spartans, while both Russell and Dorwart have six assists. Spartans goalkeeper, Dylan St. Cyr has been strong for Michigan State as well this season. He’s posting 2.28 goals against average, with a 91.3 save percentage.
On the other side of the ice, Badgers goalie Jared Moe has been nothing short of exceptional as of late. In the last two weeks, Moe has 1.75 goals against average, with a 95.5 save percentage. Right now, he’s playing like one of the best goalies in the nation and has been keeping Wisconsin in games.
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Wisconsin’s best skaters so far this season are who you’d expect them to be. Defenseman Corson Ceulemans has five points and forward Mathieu De St. Phalle has three goals. Right-wing Cruz Lucius, who was brought in as a freshman to add some goal-scoring capability, has already found the back of the net three times this season, and the future of his Badger career looks bright.
There are still some players on this team that are looking to break out and who could do it this week. Left-wing Carson Bantle is a skater to watch out for heading into East Lansing. Last year, he finished sixth on the team in points but has none so far this season. The former fifth-round pick of the Arizona Coyotes needs to have some good offensive showings to allow this team to reach its potential.
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These two teams match up evenly on the stat sheet. Both of them have good faceoff win percentages and both are really bad on the power play — the two worst in the Big Ten, in fact. Both of these teams are defensive-minded, with Michigan State having the second-best penalty kill in the Big Ten and Wisconsin blocking the most amount of shots in the conference.
On the offensive end, though Michigan State scores the second-least amount of goals in the Big Ten, they still average almost a goal more per game than Wisconsin. The Badgers do a good job of creating opportunities but struggle mightily to finish them. Someone needs to find the back of the net for the Badgers and get this offense rolling.
It’s been a slow start to the season for Wisconsin, but they’ve found ways to win on the road so far this season. They’re playing their easiest opponent to this point and are just a few steps away from being competitive with the upper echelon of the Big Ten. But the offense needs to get going in order to at least walk away with a split.
