{"id":65198,"date":"2015-07-02T01:50:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T06:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=65198"},"modified":"2015-07-02T20:54:31","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T01:54:31","slug":"goaltender-opilka-leaves-wisconsin-before-starting-freshman-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2015\/07\/02\/goaltender-opilka-leaves-wisconsin-before-starting-freshman-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Goaltender Opilka leaves Wisconsin before starting freshman season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wisconsin&#8217;s goaltending situation for next season has taken a serious blow with news that incoming freshman Luke Opilka has decided not to join the team.<\/p>\n<p>Opilka, a fifth-round selection of his hometown St. Louis Blues in last week&#8217;s NHL draft, is expected to join the OHL&#8217;s Kitchener Rangers instead of playing for the Badgers.<\/p>\n<p>He had been in summer classes at Wisconsin since June 15.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Luke had an opportunity to turn pro and pursue his dream and decided that the window of opportunity was now,&#8221; Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves said in a statement. &#8220;We want to wish him luck in pursuit of his dreams.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Opilka, a product of the U.S. Under-18 Team, was expected to be the favorite to take over the No. 1 goaltending spot at Wisconsin, which graduated goaltenders Joel Rumpel and Landon Peterson after last season.<\/p>\n<p>Badgers redshirt senior <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/stats\/player\/mid,21558\/adam-miller\/\" target=\"_blank\">Adam Miller<\/a> has played in two collegiate games and redshirt sophomore <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/stats\/player\/mid,24274\/gabe-grunwald\/\" target=\"_blank\">Gabe Grunwald<\/a> has yet to appear in an NCAA game.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014-15, Wisconsin posted its worst record (4-26-5) since the school restarted the program in 1963. Badgers coach Mike Eaves <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2015\/04\/08\/wisconsin-fires-assistant-coaches-shuchuk-walsh\/\" target=\"_blank\">fired both of the team&#8217;s assistant coaches<\/a>, Gary Shuchuk and Matt Walsh, in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He&#8217;s expected to play next season for the OHL&#8217;s Kitchener Rangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Goaltender Opilka leaves Wisconsin before starting freshman season - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"He&#039;s expected to play next season for the OHL&#039;s Kitchener Rangers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65198\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Goaltender Opilka leaves Wisconsin before starting freshman season - College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"He&#039;s expected to play next season for the OHL&#039;s Kitchener Rangers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65198\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-07-02T06:50:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-07-03T01:54:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/uscho_featured-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Todd D. 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