NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Irish hockey team kicks off its 2023 road slate with a pair of tilts at Wisconsin Jan. 6-7. Friday night’s puck drop is set for 8 p.m. ET on Bally Sports Wisconsin/BTN+ before a 6:30 p.m. ET start on the Big Ten Network Saturday night.
The Irish most recently split with Alaska, their final non-conference games of the regular season, which saw Ryan Bischel record his nation-leading fourth shutout of the season.
QUICK HITS
- Notre Dame is coming off a weekend split with Alaska to start the New Year. After dropping their final game of 2022, 3-2, the Irish bounced back Sunday with a 2-0 victory over the visiting Nanooks.
- Ryan Bischel picked up his fourth shutout of the season in Sunday night’s victory, stopping all 25 shots faced en route to the split. He is the only NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey DI netminder to record a shutout in 2023.
- Four individuals scored in the weekend series, including Hunter Strand, Chayse Primeau, Drew Bavaro and Trevor Janicke.
- The Irish closed out the first half of their season with an 8-8-2 record following a split with No. 5 Penn State at home to enter the holiday break.
- In game two of that series, Bischel stopped a career-high 47 saves as the Irish picked up a 5-3 win, and amassed 81 saves over the two game weekend.
- With 617 total saves this season, Bischel currently ranks third nationally in the category.
NOTRE DAME vs. WISCONSIN
- After seven meetings in 2021-22, the Irish and Badgers are quickly approaching the century mark, having met 87 times in program history. Notre Dame boasts 30 wins over Wisconsin in the all-time series, including a 5-2-0 record last season. All-time, the Badgers own the series record 48-30-9 and are 23-13-3 when the Irish come to town.
- In 2021-22, the two teams met twice in the regular season, with the Irish skating away with three victories in four games played. The two teams met again in the Big Ten quarterfinals with the Badgers taking game one at Compton Family Ice Arena before the Irish bounced back to claim the next two and advance to the conference semifinals.
- Two individuals boasted six points for the Irish in last season’s meetings with the Badgers as Trevor Janicke (4-2-6) and Ryder Rolston (1-5-6) combined to help lead their team to the series win last year.
- Now a senior, alternate captain Trevor Janicke played a huge factor in the Irish advancing in the postseason tournament as he recorded two late goals in the final two games to secure the wins. On…