(UW ATHLETICS) MADISON – In its regular season opener, the Wisconsin men’s hockey team fell to the Lindenwood Lions, 4-2, on Friday night at the Kohl Center.
Lindenwood (1-0-0 Independent) opened the scoring midway through the first period on the power play before Wisconsin (0-1-0, 0-0-0 Big Ten) responded with a power-play goal of its own to tie it. The Lions scored two more goals, one late in the first and early in the second, to make it 3-1, Lindenwood. The Badgers tried to spark a comeback in the third period after Ryland Mosley scored to make it 3-2, but the Lions added a final goal with 3:23 remaining to emerge victorious, 4-2.
How it Happened
Lindenwood got on the board first 11:51 into the first period after Jaeden Mercier scored on the power play.
Wisconsin evened the score with 4:18 remaining in the first period on the power play. Freshman defenseman Logan Hensler stickhandled the puck near the top of the Lions’ zone before sliding it to his left to find junior forward Tyson Dyck. Dyck then passed the puck from the top of the left faceoff circle over to Gavin Morrissey in the middle of the right faceoff dot. Morrissey took a hard shot which went through the goaltender’s five-hole and in to tally his first-career goal.
LU made it 3-1 after a goal from Alexander Lundman 2:07 into the second period.
The Badgers tried to force a comeback in the third period with graduate student forward Ryland Mosley finding the back of the net 6:42 into the final frame. Kyle Kukkonen rushed the puck into the Lions’ zone before leaving it for Morrissey near the right side of the boards. Morrissey skated up to the bottom of the zone and passed it in front of him to meet Mosley in the slot who shot it home for his first goal of the season.
Wisconsin went 1-for-5 on the power play and 2-for-3 on the penalty kill. UW finished the contest with a 36-19 advantage in shots on goal.
Head Coach Mike Hastings
On tonight’s loss
“Still trying to digest it a little bit. Usually in this game you get what you deserve — tonight we did. I want to give credit to Lindenwood, they came in and went right to work. There are some positives here, when you look at Morrissey, Mosely, Kukkonen. I like the effort and attitude — they didn’t stop. We didn’t have that enough collectively throughout the lineup. There were peaks and valleys, but we all need to take a piece of this and grow from it. There’s an effort that has to come with creating your own success, and tonight we didn’t have that.”
On how the veteran players respond to losses
“These hurt, they cut deep, we learn from them. One thing that I’ve like about that group is that they’re okay with being held accountable. They’ll learn from it because they don’t like the way this ended. When we get together tomorrow morning after they get some rest, we’re going to need a lot more guys on board, pulling that rope in the one direction.”
Graduate student forward Owen Lindmark
On regrouping before tomorrow’s series finale
“There’s a lot of things you can nitpick and wish that you did better at. The most important thing is to flush that, come to the rink in the morning ready to go, and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
On playing at the Kohl Center for the first time
“It was really exciting. It’s a great arena and atmosphere to play in. Even when we were down, the fans were loud – it was a good boost of energy when we needed it the most. We’re looking to reward them tomorrow.”
Up Next: The Badgers continue their series against Lindenwood on Saturday, Oct. 12. Fans are encouraged to bring new/gently used winter coats to donate to kids and teenagers in need through the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County. Collection boxes will be located outside entrances to the Kohl Center.
The game starts at 6 p.m. and streams on B1G+
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