MADISON — When Tyler Motte scored his tenth goal of the season he surpassed his career high for a single season. When Motte scored his 25th goal against Michigan State last week, the junior forward tallied his ninth goal in as many games, the longest streak by any Wolverine in history, surpassing Brendan Morrison.
And when Motte scored his 26th goal against Wisconsin on Friday, he not only maintained his goal-per-game average, but he set the tone for No. 6 Michigan’s 4-1 win over Wisconsin on Friday.
“I thought the first goal was important,” said Michigan coach Red Berenson. “The goals were precious.”
Just over four minutes into the first period, junior center JT Compher pretended to take a slap shot from the blue line, but instead skillfully passed the puck across the entire zone to Motte who banged home an easy one-timer.
In the same period, Motte nearly tallied his second and third of goals of the game, both on similar one-time chances off of feeds from Compher. But Wisconsin netminder Matt Jurusik won both of those battles.
With four minutes left in the first period, the Badgers (1-8-2-1 Big Ten, 6-13-6 overall) gained the game’s momentum when forward Ryan Wagner scored an odd goal. An official immediately waived off the goal because it appeared the net was off its moorings. However, after a lengthy review, the call was overturned and the goal was deemed good — a questionable call. Moments later, the Wisconsin hockey official Twitter account fittingly tweeted: “Don’t ask how, but it’s a goal!”
“Even though their player may have moved our player to move the net,” Berenson said, “they thought the puck was going to go in the goal anyways.”
Added senior netminder Steve Racine: “I knew it couldn’t have been a goal, and I went to one of the other guys and was like ‘what the hell happened? How did that go in?’ ”
That momentum was short-lived, though, and Racine remained even-keeled. After Michigan (9-2-2-1, 18-4-4) dominated the possession for most of the second frame, they finally found twine when sophomore forward Dexter Dancs finished a one-time chance from line mate senior Boo Nieves.
Dancs’ tally made Berenson happy, not only because the Wolverines took a 2-1 lead after his goal, but also because of the chemistry Dancs and Nieves exhibited during the tally. Berenson paired Dancs with Nieves after freshman forward Cooper Marody was sidelined with mononucleosis.
“I think Dexter’s got a good chance at helping Boo’s line,” Berenson said Wednesday after practice.
It certainly appeared that way on the bigger ice sheet at the Kohl Center.
“Boo really looked good,” Berenson said. “Ironically, he’s a senior and he has never played back-to-back games here in his three other years here. I always thought he would look good at this rink.”
Nieves nearly scored his second of the game in third frame when he used his speed to get behind three Wisconsin players before Jurusik made a stone-cold blocker save.
But only a minute after that, the Wolverines capitalized on a power-play chance when freshman forward Kyle Connor fed junior forward Alex Kile for a goal.
Kile’s goal was the exclamation point for the Wolverines’ win. The victory won’t have necessarily propel them forward in the rankings, but it could’ve dropped them a few spots if they would have lost.
“I’ve said all along that we’re not going to score six goals a game just because we had a run where we were,” Berenson said.