The University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team played in front of their home crowd for the first time Saturday, beating the Victoria Vikes 10-1 in an exhibition game.

First-year head coach Tony Granato reflected on his team’s performance and touched on some of the takeaway’s heading into Friday’s first regular season matchup in Green Bay against Northern Michigan.

Men’s hockey: Badgers cruise past Vikes in first exhibition game

“It was a positive start from a system side of things,” Granato said. “We didn’t implement a ton where they had to think out there. We wanted them to play.”

Sophomores Luke Kunin and Seamus Malone led the way in scoring. Kunin followed up a dominant freshman season with a hat trick while Seamus finished with two.

Granato alluded to the relative lack of action that his team’s goalies saw in their rout of the Vikes. Rumors before the game hinted that sophomore standout goalie Matt Jurusik might not start the whole season, and the slow action provided little to no answer to that question.

“It would have been nice if they would have gotten a little more pressure on them, but I think they gained confidence as well, so it was good to get both those young guys in the game,” Granato said.

Men’s hockey: Granato doesn’t want Wisconsin to be players’ final stop

Despite the fact that Wisconsin had no trouble from an offensive standpoint, they tallied seven penalties exceeding Victoria’s six. Penalties were an extensive problem for the Badgers a season ago and were a main concern going into the offseason.

“The good thing is it’s going to be hard decisions on who plays,” Granato said. “We go from 25 guys down to 20, so there’s five guys who won’t be able to play Friday night when we drop the puck. I think the positive thing for us as coaches is we know we have depth.”

Wisconsin finished last season with an overall record of 8-19-8 and will certainly look to take the first step in improving upon that mark in Friday’s season opener. If Saturday’s blowout was any indication, it seems they are already making strides in the right direction.

“There are certain things we’ve obviously worked on in the first few weeks that they’ve adapted to very well, and I think it carried over into the game,” Granato said.