MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin men's hockey team travels to Minneapolis this weekend for its second Border Battle series of the season against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
The two teams are separated by just four points in the Big Ten standings, with Minnesota in second and the Badgers tied for sixth.
This weekend's games are each slated for 7 p.m. (CT) starts. Friday's game will air on Fox Sports Wisconsin Plus, while Saturday's showdown will be televised on Fox Sports Wisconsin.
Here are six things to know ahead of this week's series against the Golden Gophers.
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THIRD-LINE GRIND: Five of Wisconsin's nine goals scored over its last three games have come from the freshmen line of
Roman Ahcan,
Dominick Mersch and
Brock Caufield. That number becomes six of 11 if you count UW's exhibition game against the U.S. Under-18 Team, in which Mersch scored. Mersch is on a career-long three-game scoring streak with two goals and an assist, Ahcan has goals in consecutive contests and Caufield has a goal and two assists over the last three games.
I'M COMING HOME: Five of UW 26 skaters call Minnesota home. Senior
Matthew Freytag, junior
Max Zimmer, sophomore
Josh Ess and freshmen
Roman Ahcan and
K'Andre Miller all grew up in the North Star state. Additionally, UW associate head coach
Mark Osiecki grew up in Burnsville, Minnesota, winning a state hockey title with Burnsville High School, while associate head coach
Mark Strobel is a St. Paul, Minnesota, native.
POWER-PLAY UNIT: The Badgers scored two power-play goals on Friday, their third multi-goal effort on the power play this season and the first since going 3-for-6 against Michigan Tech on Oct. 27. Through 22 games, the Badgers' power play unit (20.2 percent) ranks 20th in the nation. Additionally, freshman goaltender
Daniel Lebedeff recorded an assist on UW's first power-play goal of the game, becoming the first Badger goaltender to dish out an assist, since Dec. 14, 2012 when Joel Rumpel had a helper against UAH.
ON THE HORIZON: Three skaters in the Badgers' incoming freshman class were ranked in the 2019 NHL Central Scouting Midterm Rankings that were released on Monday. The rankings are a prediction of where players across North American and the world will be selected in the 2019 NHL Draft.Turcotte leads the way at No. 5 among North American skaters, while Caufield checks in at No. 15 and Lindmark sits at No. 65.
Turcotte boasts nine goals and 18 points in 13 games played with the Under-18 Team this season. He missed a significant part of the campaign earlier this year with an injury, but he's been back in the lineup since mid-December. Caufield owns 31 goals in 35 games this season and 85 all-time to rank second on the U.S. National Team Development Program career list, ahead of players like Patrick Kane and Auston Matthews. He trails only Phil Kessel (104). Lindmark has seven goals and 13 in 28 contests played for the talented U.S. Under-18 Team in a third-line role for the squad.
DOWN THE STRETCH: The games this weekend against Minnesota will mark just the third and fourth games against an unranked opponent in the last 18 contests for Wisconsin. Following the Badgers' series against the Golden Gophers, Wisconsin will face ranked opponents in six of its final 10 games, including No. 3/4 Ohio State and No. 11/12 Notre Dame.
SCOUTING THE GOLDEN GOPHERS: The Gophers enter this weekend's series with a 9-10-4 record and a 6-5-3-0 Â conference file. Last weekend, Minnesota was swept on the road by Michigan State, dropping 5-3 contests on both Friday and Saturday.
Junior forward Rem Pitlick leads Minnesota in scoring with 11 goals and 23 points in 22 games. Seniors Tyler Sheehy (6g, 19p) Â and Brent Gates Jr. (8g, 17p) round out the top three in scoring for the Gophers. In 17 games between the pipes for Minnesota, junior goaltender Mat Robson owns a 2.49 goals against average and a .929 save clip.
The teams meet for the 289th and 290th times, the most for the Badgers in school history. Wisconsin trails in the all-time series 95-170- 23. The Badgers (6) and Gophers (5) boast a combined 11 NCAA titles. UM most recently won the crown in 2003, while UW took home its latest trophy in 2006.
