After sweeping Minnesota in dramatic fashion two weeks ago, University of Wisconsin men’s hockey coach Mike Eaves was most concerned about his team keeping their “edge” over the bye week.
“In our world, if we come out 0-0, or up by one or down by one, then we are in good shape, ’cause that will help us get back into game speed,” Eaves said Wednesday after practice.
Considering the Badgers finished the first period of Friday’s game with a 2-1 lead and a 15-3 edge in shots on goal, Eaves probably felt pretty good heading into the first intermission. Even with Denver tying the game 21 seconds into the second frame, UW kept pressure on Denver goaltender Marc Cheverie, eventually resulting in a pretty goal on an odd-man rush from junior forward Michael Davies.
“We came out firing in the third period,” Davies said. “We were definitely controlling the play. It’s something we needed, because the second period, they definitely had the momentum and we needed to get that back. I thought we did.”
Through 59 minutes and 45 seconds, Wisconsin had thrown its very best at Denver.
The Badgers’ best just happened to not be good enough on this night.
“It was one of those games,” Eaves said. “We had great energy in the beginning and we got the lead, then they kind of fought and got some energy back. … And then we came out with really good energy in the third, I thought. Did some things that we wanted to do, got the lead and — except for the last 15 seconds — we did a lot of things we wanted to do.”
Though the Pioneers seized the momentum after UW senior goaltender Shane Connelly gave up the tying goal with only 15 seconds remaining in the game, Eaves felt his team still would be successful in the extra five minutes.
“I had a good feeling [in overtime],” Eaves said. “Was that [final goal] a little bit of a hangover? You know, we had a couple minutes to refocus and looking at the guys’ eyes, it was ‘Who’s got the shot?’ That was the talk on the bench. And they got the shot before we did.”
Denver’s Brian Gifford was able to put an end to that good feeling less than a minute into the extra period, putting the finishing touches on one of the most disappointing losses of the season. For the Pioneers’ part, they were aware the team escaped with a victory.
“We came out lucky last night,” Denver freshman defenseman Patrick Wiercioch said. “Then again, we have lost some games we should have won this season. And this one we won when we probably should have lost.”
While Wisconsin failed to win when they had strong energy, they certainly couldn’t pull out a victory with average play Saturday. Falling into a 3-0 hole in the first period, it appeared UW was suffering from a hangover from the previous game.
“I think it was a big-time carryover,” Cheverie said. “I think the biggest thing for us is that we had such a poor start yesterday that we really needed to focus on excelling right off the bat, and that was the big difference tonight.”
Coming off such a rough weekend, Eaves could only focus on his team moving forward with four games remaining in the regular season.
“We lost our edge, and we could have kept that edge if we had survived that 14 seconds last night and found a way to win that game,” Eaves said. “We talked to our guys after the game, about that edge you have in athletics as a team. It’s such a valuable commodity, and we lost it. Now our challenge is to get that edge back.”
