MINNEAPOLIS — To sum up the Badgers’ weekend in one word, “disappointing” works quite nicely.
Given the chance to close out the regular season on a high note, the third-ranked Wisconsin men’s hockey team could only manage a split with rival Minnesota. After a 3-2 win Friday night, the Badgers were blown out Sunday 6-1 to close out a weird series.
Sunday was Senior Day for Minnesota, and Gopher seniors Tony Lucia and Mike Carman scored two goals apiece in a game Minnesota seemed far more motivated for. The game was tied 1-1 midway through the second period, but then the wheels fell off for the Badgers.
UW junior defenseman Ryan McDonagh tangled with Minnesota’s Ryan Flynn at 8:42, with both drawing matching roughing and 10-minute misconduct penalties. McDonagh also received a minor penalty for cross checking, giving Minnesota a power play.
UW defenseman Justin Schultz later received an interference penalty with 16 seconds left on the McDonagh cross checking call. Lucia put the Gophers up 2-1 just 18 seconds later and things only got worse from there for the Badgers.
“It was a funky, funky game for us today,” UW head coach Mike Eaves said. “As (UM head coach Don Lucia) Donny said as we shook hands, they had a little more to play for than we did.”
Minnesota would finish 3-for-5 on the power play in the second period alone.
UW’s Cody Goloubef was called for roughing at 11:35, allowing Jacob Cepis to score, and Brendan Smith’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalty less than two minutes later gave Lucia his second of the game and Minnesota a 4-1 lead.
The loss of McDonagh, one of Wisconsin’s top defensive blue liners and penalty killers, only exacerbated the parade of penalties the Badgers took throughout the rest of the game.
“When you go back-to-back that many [times], it just wears on the same guys that are killing penalties, and it takes us right off our game,” McDonagh said. “Doesn’t help when they’re putting them in the net either.”
The Gophers finished the game 5-of-8 on the power play on nine shots.
Wisconsin got opportunities to make its mark as well with the man advantage, but went scoreless in its six power plays.
“They did a good job scouting us from last game and they really weren’t giving much,” senior Michael Davies said. “We still have to execute and make those plays.”
Davies scored Wisconsin’s lone goal, which came at 8:04 of the second period. He took a pass from sophomore Derek Stepan, who found him in the right faceoff circle, and one-timed the puck, going top shelf with it to UM goaltender Alex Kangas’ glove side.
UW goaltender Brett Bennett started Sunday for the first time since Feb. 13. Junior Scott Gudmandson had started UW’s previous five games in net, including Friday’s win.
Bennett was victimized by the constant string of power plays for Minnesota, with the Gophers getting several chances to tuck away loose pucks or take uncontested shots.
“It’s not his fault — I mean, 5-for-8, they got some backdoor goals,” tri-captain Blake Geoffrion said. “[We] took some dumb penalties, some selfish penalties — I took one there at the end.”
Wisconsin faced a stiff challenge in Friday’s game at the Target Center, but managed to come out with a late win. In addition to the odd venue — Minnesota hadn’t played a game there since 2000 — the game featured lots of weird bounces and three disallowed goals, all of which were in UW’s favor.
Fittingly, Madison native Craig Smith scored two goals, including the game-winner, to give UW the Border Battle victory.
Following a Nick Larson tip-in goal, the Gophers had the game tied 2-2 just 2:36 into the third period. Wisconsin seemed to wake up a bit after allowing the goal, mounting some offensive pressure but finding no results.
Finally, Geoffrion — in his first game back from injury — found Smith between the circles, where he ripped a wrist shot top shelf to Kangas’ glove side.
“Blake threw in an area pass where one of us should have been,” Smith said. “I got to it, knocked it down and turned around and had a shot.”
The goal kept Wisconsin unbeaten when leading after two periods of play (20-0-2) and ensured the Badgers wouldn’t let a game slip away to a hot Minnesota team. Conversely, UW also remained winless (0-8-2) when trailing after two periods after Sunday’s game.
The loss isn’t particularly significant for Wisconsin from a few standpoints. The WCHA playoff pairings were settled by Saturday night. And with No. 4 St. Cloud State’s poor series against Minnesota State, the Badgers shouldn’t drop in the polls.
UW will host Alaska Anchorage in the first round of the WCHA playoffs this Friday while Minnesota will go on the road to take on North Dakota.
Despite the success Friday on special teams, where Wisconsin’s penalty kill unit successfully killed all six of Minnesota’s power plays and the power play went 2-for-5, Sunday’s game has the team a little concerned heading into the playoffs.
“We’ve got a list of things; a lack of discipline, a lack of willingness to block shots, we didn’t execute very good in some of our specialty team areas and… you see the result on the scoreboard,” Eaves said.
Asked if the loss could serve as motivation heading into the playoffs, McDonagh shot the notion down.
“No, I don’t think so, especially against these guys,” McDonagh said. “I think the momentum we would have had if we were coming out with a win would have been way better than having a bitter loss, so to speak.”
