Wisconsin hockey shakes off holiday rust in Milwaukee
The shorthanded Wisconsin Badgers men's hockey team got the help it needed from unlikely contributors
Milwaukee, WI — Despite turnovers, a sluggish start, and missing key contributors, Wisconsin hockey returned from a three-week holiday break with a win. Thanks to a pair of unlikely heroes and a captain who “epitomizes what it is to be a Badger,” UW remains unbeaten since before Thanksgiving.
“I found over the last few years of being a part of this tournament, it is a little bit of that — it’s not a Mona Lisa,” Wisconsin head coach Mike Hastings said in a post-game interview. “It’s about finding ways to win hockey games as you’re coming off a break.”
Both the Badgers (13-2-2, 8-2-0 Big Ten) and the Lake Superior State Lakers (6-11-1, 3-9-0 CCHA) traded breakaway goals off turnovers at the blue line. The Lakers earned a goal and a second-period lead by scoring on a 2-on-1, taking advantage of a bad Badgers’ line change with a stretch pass.
“Holiday hockey, right? It can be a little sloppy, a little challenging,” Lake Superior State head coach Damon Whitten said.
Despite the adversity, Wisconsin earned a hard-fought 3-2 victory and a spot in the 2025 Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off championship game on Monday night.
“Sometimes, at this time of the year when you come back from break, some of it’s survival. But I do think that shows a mental fortitutde, a mental toughness,” said Hastings. “And again, Lake State kept pushing us, and I just like that we found a way to get it done. And at the end of the day, that’s all you can really ask your guys to do.”
Weston Knox opens the scoring with his first career goal
This weekend, Wisconsin needs to go even deeper into its roster than usual. Defensemen Logan Hensler and Luke Osburn are on the other side of the Mississippi River with Team USA at the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championships hosted in the Twin Cities. Quinn Finley, who took home Most Outstanding Forward honors at the 2024 Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off with the Badgers, is in Davos, Switzerland, with the U.S. Collegiate Selects team at the Spengler Cup.
After suffering a lower-body injury against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, defender Zach Schulz also remains sidelined.
With limited bodies at defense, Hastings moved senior forward Jack Horbach to the blue line and elevated sophomore Weston Knox to the game day lineup. Before Sunday, Knox had appeared in only three games this season and had yet to record a point.
The Andover, Minnesota native made his presence known early on the defensive end. A scramble for a loose puck in front of the net led to a handful of potential scoring opportunities for Lake State, but no goal as Knox used his body to swallow up a potential wrap-around. The play exemplified the “survival” instincts UW needed to come away with a win.
“We take a lot of pride in having all five guys back, making sure it wasn’t just one guy that made the play,” Knox said of the effort. “It was [goaltender Daniel Hauser] making a couple saves before that one and then everyone buying in tying up. The puck was loose for a really long time. I don’t know how many times they actually got a shot with us all five being in there and grinding it out.”
For Knox’s effort at one end, he was rewarded on the other. Later in the first period, he scored his first collegiate goal, finding the back of the net on a lightly lobbed shot from the point, much to the delight of his teammates.
“I wish you guys could have shared a little bit of the moment when Knox scores that first one, and how uplifting that was for our bench, and just seeing the genuine appreciation,” Hastings said. “Because, you know, Weston’s a guy that shows up every single day and does the work and doesn’t get his candy sometimes on the weekends because hd eosn’t get an opportunity. We had different guys take advantage of the opportunities that they’ve gotten and he definitely did that tonight.”
Badgers captain gets Wisconsin hockey back from the brink
Converting on nearly 30% of its opportunities on the man advantage, the Badgers boast the nation’s fifth-best power play. The Lakers managed to keep UW’s PP at bay much of the night, preventing many scoring chances and ultimately holding the Badgers to only one goal on four power plays.
“On the power play, we weren’t unbelievably effective the first couple of opportunities that we had,” Hastings said. “They were taking away [Gavin Morrissey], they were taking away Bruno [Idzan] on the other side, and we just talked about [Ben Dexheimer] trying to shoot some pucks down because when we does, he’s just much more effective on the power play.”
When a power-play opportunity came as Wisconsin trailed late in the second period, the Badgers’ captain cashed in.
A timely faceoff win by UW senior Christian Fitzgerald, his only attempt on the draw of the night, set up a play for Dexheimer, using Idzan as, what Hastings called, “bait” for a Lakers defender before Dexheimer “just put that where he needed to put it.”
“He’s just been — he epitomizes what it is to be a Badger and what it is to be a lead guy,” Hastings said of his team’s captain. “Because the growth that he has had — I’ll say from when he got here as a freshman and when I had an opportunity to start to coach him — to see what he means to our team and to step up in that moment — because we were leaking oil there for a little bit. And he found a way to get it back to 2-2.
“And that allowed us to get our feet underneath us and allow [Finn] Brink to do what he did.”
‘Everydayer’ Finn Brink makes the difference
Freshman forward Finn Brink, much like Knox, took advantage of an opportunity in the game day lineup. In his ninth collegiate game, the Maple Grove, Minnesota native scored a third-period go-ahead goal that proved the difference.
Brink, playing in a newly earned role as a penalty killer, corralled a puck bouncing past Lakers defender Adam Barone at the Badger blue line. Then, as the Wisconsin penalty expired, Brink raced down the ice on a breakaway as a very pro-Badgers crowd inside Fiserv Forum rose to its feet.
“I thought it was really cool because you could hear the fans stand up and get excited,” Brink said of what may have been the loudest reaction by the crowd of the night.
A quick flick on a right-handed wrist shot gave Brink his third goal of the year, and his team the lead.
“The puck was kind of just bobbling, and it’s my job to go out there and kind of chase him and push him down a little bit,” Brink said of the forced turnover that turned into a goal. “And he ended up bobbling it and I was already headed towards him, and then, obviously, I’m going to try and take that puck and skate the other way. And I was able to make a play and ultimately score, which felt really good to contribute and help us win as a team.”
“He’s an everydayer. He’s a guy you like to cheer for just because he comes in with a smile on his face, with his work boots and his hard hat and says ‘okay, I’ll go about it.,’” Hastings said of Brink’s work ethic, regardless of whether he is in the lineup on a given weekend. “Whether he’s gaving a good day or not, you’d have no idea because every day’s a good day for Brinker. And to see that happen and to see him finish, again, uplifting on our bench because we needed different guys to step up. Happy for him because he puts a lot of work into it.”
Up next for Wisconsin hockey
The Badgers return to the ice inside Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee tomorrow night to play for the 2025 Kwik Trip Holiday Face-Off championship. Wisconsin faces the winner of the second semifinal matchup between the #7 Western Michigan Broncos and #12 Boston College Eagles.
Wisconsin has won three of the four Holiday Face-Off titles since the event’s inception in 2021.
The championship game begins at 7:30 p.m. Central. It is available to watch on Big Ten Plus.
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