With defending national champion Denver in town for a weekend series, the Wisconsin men’s hockey team showed both its explosiveness and its youthful side in a weekend split.

With both teams possessing plenty of talent, it was intensity and work rate that was the difference in each game.

“It doesn’t always come down to a matter of skill in this league,” junior captain Adam Burish said. “It’s a matter of who wants it more, who’s going to battle, who’s going to pay a price to win.”

The Badgers paid that price Friday night starting the weekend off well by earning a 6-3 victory. With the score tied 3-3 going into the third period, the Badgers again outplayed an opponent through the stretch run picking up three unanswered goals on their way to the win.

“The hard work has paid off again,” head coach Mike Eaves said after the game in reference to the team’s grueling conditioning regiment.

While the work rate and intensity were there throughout the game, Wisconsin played too much “fire-wagon” hockey according to Eaves, and while the up-and-down action might have been exciting for the fans, it wasn’t effective for the Badgers.

In the third period, the Badgers not only out-worked the Pioneers, they played smarter hockey as well. With UW out-shooting DU 9-5 and outscoring them 3-0, the difference was evident to nearly all in attendance.

“[The coaches] said, ‘Let’s step back a bit and mature, and play with poise and confidence, and do the things we want in the systems,'” Eaves said. “Play as hard but play together in the systems.”

According to players and coaches alike, the difference in the third period all season has been the conditioning work. While the upperclassmen are used to the work it takes to have success at this level, the younger players are getting their first taste of what it takes to win in the WCHA.

“When we came in this summer it was quite a shock to us,” freshman Joe Pavelski said. “Badger hockey conditioning is a whole new level.”

With all the talk about Wisconsin’s incredible success in the third period on Friday night, sophomore Ross Carlson warned that there are two other periods that are just as important.

“Every period we have to come out hard,” Carlson said. “We can’t just make it the last period.”

Carlson’s comments would prove true a night later.

In Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Pioneers, the Badgers showed that any letdown in the WCHA can have negative results. With Wisconsin outworked throughout much of the game, Denver was able to earn a series split. The game left Eaves ruing the Badgers inability to match the Pioneers’ intensity.

“You have the defending national champs, they pick it up a notch and we weren’t as sharp right from the get go,” Eaves said. “Then you have to play catch-up trying ourselves to the level to match them and that’s a very difficult thing to do.”

DU scored just 27 seconds into the game, and UW never really caught up, as each time they drew level, the Pioneers would score again. The second period especially epitomized the Badgers’ game as they were out-shot 19-5, and went to the locker room trailing 4-3.

“We got outplayed, we got out-hit, we got out-worked and they won they won the game,” Burish said. “That’s the WCHA, every weekend’s a battle.”

With Wisconsin bringing more intensity in their win Friday night only to see Denver come back with more intensity the following night it seemed that the two teams switched identities from one night to the next.

“We weren’t as sharp and they picked it up a notch,” Eaves said after Saturday’s loss. “We passed by each other some place in the night last night.”