Josh Ess

Hobey Baker Award candidate Cole Caufield notched a hat trick to lead the 5th ranked Wisconsin men’s hockey team (17-8-1, 15-6-1 1-1-0 Big Ten) to a 7-0 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes (6-17-1, 6-17-1 0-2-0 Big Ten) in the Badgers regular season home finale.

Ty Pelton-Byce also scored twice for the Badgers, who also got single tallies from Ty Emberson and Dylan Holloway.

Freshman goaltender Cameron Rowe stopped all 21 shots he faced for his second career shutout. Rowe leads all freshmen goalies with a .939 save percentage.

Linus Weissbach, Pelton-Byce, Tarek Baker, Jason Dhooghe, Josh Ess and Robbie Beydoun make up Wisconsin’s senior class.

The hat trick for Caufield is his second of the season and third in his two-year career.

The Badgers kept the heat on the Minnesota Gophers. With two games left, Wisconsin needs to win twice at Michigan State and get Minnesota to lose once to Michigan for the Badgers to clinch their first regular season league title in 21 years.

The 14th ranked Wisconsin Badgers (2-1-0, 2-1-0-0 Big Ten) suffered their first loss of the season, 5-2 in their home opener against the 6th ranked Michigan Wolverines (3-0-0, 1-0-0-0 Big Ten) at LaBahn Arena on Thursday night.

Senior Josh Ess opened the scoring for the Badgers, scoring his first goal of the season just 1:10 into the first.

The Wolverines scored three times in the second period to tie and take the lead.

The Badgers drew to within a goal early in the third on a Linus Weissbach power play tally, but the Wolverines quickly responded with a goal of their own and then added an empty netter late for the final 5-2 margin.

Senior Robbie Beydoun had 29 saves in goal for the Badgers.

The two teams return to action on Friday night with a 6 p.m. faceoff time at LaBahn Arena.