MADISON, Wis. — Freshmen Mick Messner and K’Andre Miller recorded their first collegiate goals as the Wisconsin men’s hockey team opened the regular season with a 3-0 win over No. 12/10 Boston College Friday night at the Kohl Center.
After a scoreless first period, Miller fired a wrist shot from the circle past BC (0-1-0, 0-0-0-0 HEA) goaltender Joseph Woll to open the scoring for the Badgers (1-0-0, 0-0-0-0 Big Ten) five minutes into the second period.
Messner earned his first tally as a Badger less than 10 minutes later when fellow rookie forward Jack Gorniak fed a quick pass to Messner who fired a shot and then buried his own rebound past Woll to give UW a 2-0 lead.
Sophomore forward Tarek Baker scored an empty-netter in the final 30 seconds of the third period to seal a 3-0 victory.
Junior goaltender Jack Berry made 29 saves en route to his fourth career shutout as a Badger.
Notes to Know:
– Wisconsin has won all three home openers under head coach Tony Granato.
– Senior captain Peter Tischke skated in his 100th career game for the Badgers.
– Two Madison natives scored for UW tonight. Messner, a graduate of Madison West high school, and Baker, of Verona, each recorded goals.
– Berry’s four shutouts now rank tenth on Wisconsin’s all time shutout list, tied with Two-time NCAA champion and Olympic goaltender Marc Behren (1980-83).
Head Coach Tony Granato
On the freshmen effort:
I would assume for the people in the building that have never seen the freshmen, they liked what they saw. They left it all on the ice, they play hard, they block shots, they compete.”
On the defense:
We know what we got with [K’Andre Miller] he’s been great in practice.Our back end, our 6 D, the three sophomores that all had great freshman years last year with Kyalnuk, Inamoto, and Ess. And then you throw Tischke as a senior leader in there, and then you got Emberson and Miller jumping in there with that group, it’s a really solid group. Miller has a bright future and tonight was a good start for him.
On Jack Berry:
On the penalty, the short-hand chance they had was probably the point of the game that if they scored there that could’ve changed the game completely so that save was huge. He looked big, he tried to make them make perfect shots by being the right position. He looked just solid and calm, and there were points in that game where he made really big saves for us.
On the strength of UW’s schedule:
If you’re playing in-your-face style hockey, and you’ve got skaters and four lines that are able to do it, it doesn’t matter who you play.