The Wisconsin hockey team took a pair of contests from the Quinnipiac Bobcats this weekend in their season debut at the Kohl Center, winning 2-1 in overtime Friday night and exploding offensively for a 4-1 victory Saturday.

The Badgers’ homecoming couldn’t have been any more refreshing. For a team that has struggled mightily to produce offense this year and that will face increasingly difficult teams to produce offense against in weeks to come, getting some confidence and getting into an offensive rhythm this weekend against Quinnipiac was vital.

The Bobcats didn’t make it easy. Playing a style that essentially boils down to a constant extended-penalty kill, the Bobcats lulled the Badgers into lethargic play in Friday night’s game and through the first period and a half of Saturday night’s contest. Quinnipiac offered Wisconsin the outer offensive zone, roping them into taking more long shots. The system allowed the Badgers to take 48 shots to the Bobcats 17 Friday night and 49 to 20 Saturday.

While the numbers seem striking at first and while the Badgers were able to control the tempo of both games, the outside, low-quality shots never gave Bobcat goalie Justin Eddy any trouble Friday night. The standout senior was almost perfect, stopping 46 of 47 regulation shots to force the game into overtime. The only shot that snuck past was a rebound a streaking Rene Bourque picked up and roofed on him.

In overtime the Badgers sent 6’5″ defenseman Andy Wozniewski to the net. He took up space, blocked Eddy’s view of the play, and managed to get his stick on a shot by senior captain Dan Boeser.

Saturday night was progressing very similarly for the Badgers through the first period, as the Badgers again seemed all too ready to play into the Bobcat system, which allowed the less talented, slower team to stay in games with sixth ranked Michigan last weekend. The Bobcats allowed the Badgers to take 21 shots in the first period. In spite of starting second-string goalie Jamie Holden, the Cats again made the Badgers look like they were facing Patrick Roy.

Midway through the second period, the Badgers finally broke through figuratively and literally. The Badger’s first line, consisting of Bourque, Sophomore Ryan MacMurchy and freshman Andrew Joudrey began to charge the shell that the Bobcats were creating around the net and took over the game.

MacMurchy led the charge. He darted toward the net with two defenders draped on his hip and managed to find a perfectly positioned Bourque, setting up the senior’s second goal of the weekend. After leading the team in scoring last year, Bourque had been goalless in this season’s first four games.

“It felt really good,” Bourque said. “Just to get the weight off my shoulders, just to get it off my mind.”

MacMurchy continued to find holes in the zone. Holding the puck against the boards in the corner with the Bobcat defense all over the Badger forwards in front of the net, MarMurchy spotted an opening and walked untouched toward the net. Two dekes later, he lifted the puck perfectly over Holden’s right shoulder.

With less than 30 seconds remaining in the second period, Joudrey got in on the action, exploiting a weak spot in the zone and beating Holden high. MacMurchy put an exclamation point on the weekend with his second goal of the game on a breakaway late in the third period.

Highly touted freshman goalie Brian Elliott made his Badger debut Saturday night in less than ideal conditions. Elliott saw only five shots through the first two periods of the game and had trouble, letting in the only good shot he saw. In the third period he was able to get into more of a rhythm and stopped all 14 shots he faced.

The Badgers had a considerable amount of difficulty Friday night with what head coach Mike Eaves calls “the balance between playing smart and playing hard.”

UW took 15 minutes of penalties in a stretch in the second period. The Bobcat power play was ineffectual though and failed to convert. The Badgers will not be able to play so erratically if they want to compete with some of the better teams they will soon face.