For the second time since the start of January, the Wisconsin men’s hockey team got close, but again close turned out to be not good enough.

Tied at three with Minnesota Saturday night, the Badgers (2-16-4, 0-6-2-2 Big Ten) scored on the power play with just 1:13 remaining in regulation to take the lead. But that lead didn’t last, as the Gophers (12-9-3, 3-2-3-0) scored with only two seconds left to send the game to overtime.

However, in the extra session Wisconsin responded and battled to a scoreless five minutes and then took down the Gophers 3-2 in the shootout to earn the extra point in the Big Ten standings.

Although disappointed with the second last second goal of the month to force a game into overtime, UW goaltender Joel Rumpel saw consolation in at least a positive result.

“Quite honestly, we’ll take whatever we can get,” Rumpel said. “We battled hard hard and we played a good game. It’s obviously heartbreaking with two seconds left to give one up like that. Honestly, I’ll take it.”

Like Friday night, Wisconsin jumped out to the lead, and a rather quick one at that. Freshman Ryan Wagner tipped Jake Linhart’s shot past Minnesota netminder Adam Wilcox to give UW the lead only nine seconds into the game, tying a Badgers’ record for the fastest goal to start a game.

But Minnesota answered with a goal 7:48 later in the first to tie the game, and then took its first lead 4:47 into the second period of play.

Unlike Friday night though, Wisconsin had a response to the Minnesota offense. It took a little more than a period, but Grant Besse answered with the first of the Badgers’ two power-play goals 7:01 into the third period to bring the game even at two.

The back and forth affair continued, and Minnesota came back immediately to take the lead when Christian Isackson buzzed a shot past Rumpel’s glove 30 seconds later.

But Rumpel continued to make saves throughout the rest of the game to keep Wisconsin within catching distance, finishing with 42 saves total.

“Without Rumps playing the way he did, we don’t have the tie and we don’t win in the shootout,” Eaves said. “He was a big picture of it tonight.”

Wisconsin took advantage of Rumpel’s stellar play after defenseman Kevin Schulze drew a penalty with 3:12 remaining in the third period.

That set the stage for freshman Cameron Hughes, who blasted a slap shot past Wilcox from the right circle to give UW what seemed to be the game-winning goal.

Minnesota had another answer left, and it came from Seth Ambroz, who continued to haunt Wisconsin. Ambroz banged the rebound past Rumpel in the waning seconds for his 34th career goal, 11 of which have come against the Badgers.

After the teams played the overtime without a goal, Wisconsin won the shootout 3-2 with the clincher from Corbin McGuire.

Wisconsin earned two points, but again left a win on the table still in search of its first Big Ten win.

“It seems right now our path to success, we’re really hitting some bumpy roads to get there,” Eaves said. “There are some hard lessons. I was really interested to see how our kids reacted in overtime after getting scored on…because against [Boston University] we were flat coming out for that overtime. But tonight we had more life. 

“We need to use this as a lily pad to keep growing.”