Hayton Transferring to Wisconsin

 

Kyle Hayton's career at St. Lawrence is over. His tenure at Wisconsin is just beginning.

Hayton, who backstopped the Saints the past three years as their No. 1 goaltender, has graduated from SLU with a bachelor's degree, and has been cleared to transfer to Wisconsin where he will now backstop the Badgers while also working on his MBA. St. Lawrence does not offer an MBA program among its graduate academic offerings.

A Denver native, Hayton fashioned a 54-37-13 record over 104 career games at SLU, to go with 13 shutouts, according to USCHO.com. He also complied career a 2.09 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage.

A product of Sioux City (USHL) and Shattuck St. Mary's prior to enrolling at SLU, Hayton earned Second Team All-America accolades as a junior under new SLU head coach Mark Morris, after going 16-12-7 in 35 outings (2.28, .929, 5 SO). He backstopped the Saints to a fourth-place regular-season finish in the ECAC, and played his final game for SLU in a 3-2 loss against Quinnipiac on March 12 in the deciding contest of a best-of-three ECAC Tournament quarterfinal series.

As a freshman in 2014-15, Hayton won 20 games and posted five shutouts, and was named ECAC Rookie of the Year, Second Team All ECAC, and ECAC All-Rookie Team. He also guided the Saints to the ECAC Tournament semifinals in Lake Placid his first two seasons, where they fell by a goal each time.

Hayton, who has not been drafted by an NHL club, is expected to be in net for the Badgers on Oct. 27-28 when the Saints visit Wisconsin for two non-conference contests. The Badgers went 20-15-1 overall last season in their first campaign under head coach Tony Granato. Wisconsin finished second in the Big Ten Conference, qualified for the Big Ten championship game in Detroit, and came within a double-overtime goal of making the NCAA Tournament.