Offense ruled the night at Yost Ice Arena, unfortunately the Badgers offense ran out of gas too soon. After the Badgers went up 3-0 it was all Michigan, who scored four unanswered goals en route a 6-4 win in the Big Ten opener for both teams.
It appeared that the Badgers were going to coast in their first Big Ten contest of the season, opening up a 3-0 lead early in to the second period. Star freshman forward Luke Kunin put the Badgers on the scoreboard first, with a power play goal at the 6:28 mark of the first period.
Kunin gave himself a quick Birthday present, but the Badgers couldn’t find the back of the net the rest of the period. UW managed just seven shots to Michigan’s eight in the opening stanza, but goalkeeper Matt Jurisik was up to the task in the first period.
Unfortunately that would be the only period where the Wolverines were kept from lighting the lamp. Jurusik finished the game by giving up five of UW’s six goals against and stopped just 22 of 27 shots faced.
After a feeling out period in the opening stanza, one that included just two penalties, things opened up in a major way during the second period.
UW found a way to turn up the heat on the hosts early on in the second period, with Tim Davison, who assisted on Kunin’s goal, netting his own at the 2:39 mark and putting the Badgers up 2-0. It was his fourth on the season.
The next goal came from an unexpected source, as freshman forward Will Johnson (2) lit the lamp at the 6:21 mark of the second period for a 3-0 Badgers lead. It was nearly a mirror image as the second goal with Ryan Wagner and Jason Ford collecting assists on the goal.
Michigan didn’t wilt under the pressure from the visiting Badgers though, instead it dug in and dug its way out of the 3-0 hole rather quickly. It took just 26 seconds after UW went up 3-0 for the Wolverines to erase the goose egg on their side of the scoreboard.
Dexter Dancs lit the lamp at the 6:47 mark of the second period to start what would become a wild rest of the second period.
Just over two minutes later the Badgers lead was cut to one as Michigan took advantage of a rare power play in this game. Brendan Warren made up for an earlier missed penalty shot and put home a rebound effort off Jurusik’s clearance of his net.
“Well that’s the third time it’s happened to us this year,” Eaves said of letting a team back into a game after having a multiple-goal lead. “We called a timeout after the second goal just to kind of, ‘Hey guys, we’ve been here before.’ That kind of settled us down a little bit. It’s a hump we have to get over.”
Wisconsin attempted to stop the momentum that the home team was gaining, as Matt Ustaski took advantage of a bad mistake deep in the defensive zone by Michigan’s Dancs and slotted an easy one home to make it 4-2 with just over 10 minutes gone in the period.
The scoring-fest wasn’t done though, as Michigan would score two unanswered goals in a span of three minutes to tie the game back up at 4-4. JT Compher netted just his second goal of the season to make it 4-3 at the 13:42 mark. Less than three minutes later it was 4-4 as Justin Selman found a way to redirect a dribbling puck past Jurusik.
Both teams skated hard in the third period and created plenty of chances, with the Badgers outshooting Michigan 10-7 in the final stanza. However, it was Michigan that found a way to put the puck in the back of the net.
The Wolverines took their first lead of the game thanks to a great play by Tyler Motte, who fooled the defense and Jurusik for an easy goal and a 5-4 lead at the 3:22 mark of the final period.
From there, the game flew by, with the two teams skating without a single whistle for the next 10 minutes.
Wisconsin went extra-man all the way down to the wire, including a final face-off at center ice with just seconds left in the contest. Michigan won that face-0ff and slotted home an empty-netter from Kyle Connor, giving them a 6-4 final score and Connor his sixth goal of the season.
The Badgers and Wolverines will clash in the series finale on Saturday night at 6:30p.m. CT and can be seen on BTN2Go.
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