Release provided by University of Wisconsin Athletics

EAST LANSING, Mich. – The No. 7/10 Wisconsin men’s hockey team returned to Big Ten Conference play firing on all cylinders, besting Michigan State, 6-3, on Friday night at Munn Arena.

Wisconsin (7-4-1, 2-1-0-0 Big Ten) saw goals from six different players in the win, outshooting the Spartans (4-5-0, 0-3-0-0 Big Ten) by a 26-17 margin.

Junior forward Matthew Freytag got the Badgers on the board, scoring on a feed from freshman Tarek Baker just one minute, 59 seconds into the contest.

Junior Will Johnson doubled the Wisconsin lead at the 12:59 mark, ripping a wrist shot from the left side past MSU netminder Ed Minney while on the man-advantage.

Ryan Wagner made it a three-goal game minutes later, catching a pass while streaking up the left boards and slotting the puck under Minney’s pads. The 3-0 Badger advantage held into the first intermission.

Michigan State took advantage of power-play momentum in the second period, scoring 1:04 into the second frame as a 5-on-3 power play expired. The Spartans struck again at the 6:23 mark, closing the gap, 3-2.

Baker scored a goal of his own in the final five minutes of the second stanza, collecting on the rebound of Sean Dhooghe’s shot that rang off the post.

Senior captain Cameron Hughes opened the final period with a goal just 43 seconds in, intercepting a pass in front of the MSU net and collecting on the turnover with his fourth goal of the season.

Freshman Wyatt Kalynuk then scored his first as a Badger at 7:34, one-timing an absolute cannon from the point through traffic and into the back of the net.

MSU responded with another power-play goal late in the third, but the rally was too little too late as the Badgers held out for the 6-3 conference victory.

Senior goaltender Kyle Hayton made 14 saves in the victory.

Notes to Know
-          Eleven different Badgers recorded a point in the win. Five players shared the team lead with two points, as Wyatt Kalynuk, Ryan Wagner, Tarek Baker and Cameron Hughes each tallied a goal and an assist, while Sean Dhooghe added two helpers.
-          Wisconsin scored a season-high six goals in the contest.
-          The Badgers held the Spartans to just two shots on goal in the final period, tying the fewest shots in a period by an opponent this season.
-          The Badgers won their fifth consecutive game against Michigan State, tying the longest winning streak against MSU all-time.
-          UW improved to 52-52-3 all-time against MSU, reaching .500 for the second time in school history in the series. A win tomorrow would give them a winning record against MSU for the first time in school history.
-          Wisconsin handed Michigan State its first home loss of the season, as the Spartans are now 4-1-0 at Munn Arena.

Straight From the Rink:
Associate Head Coach Mark Osiecki
“We moved our feet extremely well. When we didn’t have the puck we were able to get it back. Second period got away from them a little bit, all of the sudden you’re up by three and your mindset changes a little bit. ‘I’ll extend my shift a little bit, I’ll try something a little extra’ and as a result, we got some penalties and got the turnovers, and then we were spread out in terms of our line changes.

“We just wanted to hit the reset button [going into the third period] and the guys did. I give a lot of credit to Cameron Hughes, I thought he did a tremendous job as a leader, he led by example. We came in after the second period and said, ‘let’s remind our boys how Badger hockey is played.’ He went and talked about it between the second and third.”

On the first period coming “too easily”
“I think it’s natural, I think you get up by three and it’s natural for guys to think ‘well maybe there’s an opportunity for me to score a goal or find a way to get a couple points.’ Now on the flip side, we get penalties and they score, and we get power plays and we’re a little cute on the power play and they generate momentum from their power plays and their kills. That was the difference in my opinion.”

On scoring a season-high six goals from six different players
“You look at what we’re trying to do with playing, as far as time on ice, we try to spread that out as much as possible. We’ve been talking as a staff that our offense is going to come and it’s just a matter of finding some chemistry, understanding how we want to play as a group. We felt it, we felt from Day One against Michigan Tech, that our offense is going to come at some point.”

Freshman Tarek Baker
On coach Osiecki calling a timeout
“Obviously I think he knew we just needed to settle down, I think we needed to let the emotions settle down and not let the state of the game get too much of us and get back to what we were doing. I think we got a little lazy, just hit a little wall there, and once he pulled us all in we knew that we had to get back to the simple game.”

On his goal
“Obviously in a tight game like that, 3-2, to be able to put us up by two going into the third, we could play with a bigger lead and I think it gave us our momentum back and we knew that third period we needed to shut them down and play our game. Get pucks deep and get pucks to the net.”

On the difference in play between periods
“Our first and third periods were Badger hockey. The second period we kind of let off the gas. We just need to find a way to play a 60-minute game and once we do that I think the sky’s the limit for us.”

Senior Cameron Hughes
On how soon the team was able to rebound after the timeout
“Maybe a couple shifts. They’re going to have a response, hockey’s that way. Things were looking good for us and they responded. We just had to be able to weather it and get back to all the things that we were doing.”

On his talk to the team before the third period
“Yeah, the message of working as five together, not getting over-extended on our shifts and focusing to get the job done. We put ourselves in a pretty good spot and ultimately we got the job done.”

On his goal
“It felt pretty good, Seamus made a great play. I think both of us kind of needed something like that to go our way. To have that, I was pretty excited.”

On the spread of scoring
“It’s encouraging, it shows our depth. It shows that what we do as a team works for anybody, whether you’re top-six, bottom-six, you do the things that coaches lay out for you it’s going to work and we saw that tonight.”

Up Next
The Badgers close out the series with Michigan State on Saturday, Nov. 11 at Munn Arena at 6 p.m. CT. The game will be streamed LIVE on FloHockey.