Without one minute and 40 seconds, the Wisconsin men’s hockey team would have dispatched Minnesota Friday night at the Kohl Center.
Unfortunately for the Badgers (2-16-3, 0-6-1-1 Big Ten), they had to play the entire 60 minutes, and in two separate spans that totaled just over two minutes, the Gophers scored six times to drop UW, 7-5.
For the second straight series opener, the Badgers jumped out to a big advantage, but for the second straight series opener, the middle period haunted them, as Minnesota (12-9-2, 3-2-2-0) scored four times in 100 seconds in the midway part of the frame to erase a 3-1 deficit.
“Compared to the lead we had last Friday night [against Michigan], I thought we were better,” Eaves said. “It was like somebody turned the light off for a minute and 40 seconds and we had no clue what our brain was doing.”
Wisconsin had scored with just seven seconds left in the first period on a nifty breakaway goal from freshman Matt Ustaski to go up 2-1, and added to that with Grant Besse’s fifth goal in his last five games 4:13 into the second period.
But a little less than seven minutes later, Minnesota’s Vinni Lettieri found a loose puck in front of UW goaltender Joel Rumpel and stuffed the puck in between Rumpel’s legs to start the Gophers’ onslaught. It took the Gophers another 1:01 to tally their next goal, but Jake Bischoff’s score at the 12:01 mark began a string of three goals in just 39 seconds to put Minnesota up for good.
Those four goals in the second period came from four different players, as Minnesota’s had 13 different players tally a point throughout the evening.
Another common theme throughout the night came in the form of Wisconsin allowing rebound chances. The final three goals of the second period from Minnesota all came after Rumpel made the initial save.
“It’s obviously tough letting in seven, but I was battling as hard as I could. I was inches away from making three of them,” Rumpel said. “It’s unfortunate, but it happens some games I guess.”
Wisconsin got another late goal in the second period to bring the lead down to 5-4 heading into the final frame. But, Minnesota had another short burst of offense eight minutes into the third period to put the game away. Taylor Cammarata slammed home a rebound try on the power play after Rumpel stopped Sam Warning’s initial shot from the top of the left circle. Then just 36 seconds later at even strength, Hudson Fasching zipped one past Rumpel from the slot to make it 7-4.
Jedd Soleway’s goal a minute and 15 seconds later brought the lead down to two, but Wisconsin couldn’t get any closer the rest of the way. Dating back to Jan. 17 against Minnesota, Wisconsin has been outscored 25-11 in its last four games.
And despite a nearly carbon copy of last Friday’s 7-4 loss to Michigan, Wisconsin still couldn’t learn from its mistakes from a week ago in its fourth straight loss.
“With this happening before, I think we were a little bit more confident in [keeping the lead], but I think the results showed that we weren’t tonight,” defenseman Chase Drake said.
