Wisconsin men’s hockey: UW is trying to break the scoreboard

The Penn State Nittany Lions made a key change on Tuesday night after losing to the Wisconsin Badgers 6-3 on Monday night. They decided that a new goalie was in order to try and stop the potent Badgers offense and...well...it didn’t work. Nittany Lions goalie Liam Souliere gave up six goals on 26 shots and UW added an empty netter for good measure to win 7-3 and secure the sweep.

The No. 14 Badgers (4-2-0, 4-2-0-0-1-0 Big Ten) offense was led by sophomore forward Cole Caufield who scored a hat trick on eight shots and made life a living hell for the No. 15 Penn State (0-4-0, 0-4-0-0-0-0 Big Ten) defensemen. UW mentions, if you can’t see the tweet below, that Caufield is the first Badger to have two career hat tricks since Robbie Earl did it during his career from 2003-2006.

The Badgers opened the game with a dominant first period, outscoring PSU 3-0 and out-shooting them 15-10, featuring goals from Linus Weissbach (his fourth of the season), Dominick Mersch and a power play tally from Caufield. The Nittany Lions scored first in the second period but then UW had the next three, including a shorthanded marker from Tarek Baker and Caufield’s second of the game.

Penn State scored two goals back to back in the third to make things a tiny bit interesting, but the Badgers battened down the hatches for the rest of the game and Caufield capped off a masterful performance with an empty netter for his hat trick.

Wisconsin goalie Robbie Beydoun was solid between the pipes yet again, saving 35 of 38 shots and notching his fourth win of the season.

Here are some game and series notes courtesy of UW:

• Cole Caufield notched his first hat-trick of the season and the second of his career for a four-goal weekend. He notched his first hat trick last season at Notre Dame Jan. 24, 2020.
• Points galore: Linus Weissbach and Anthony Kehrer each tallied a 4-point weekend while Sam Stange took away his third goal of the weekend for three points along with Tarek Baker.
• Wisconsin’s power play improved 6-20 (30.0 percent), scoring a power-play marker for the sixth consecutive game.
• The Badgers’ second sweep of the 2020-21 campaign matches last season’s total.

UW plays host to Arizona State for one last home series in 2020 this coming weekend. The puck drops at 7 p.m. Saturday night and 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon. Catch the games on Fox Sports Wisconsin or BTN+ and listen on 1310 WIBA.