A night after being totally anemic on offense Wisconsin came out firing early and often, but it still wasn’t enough as St. Cloud State came from behind to win 2-1 and earn the series sweep at the Kohl Center. Wisconsin put 42 shots on net against the Huskies (12-14-4, 9-10-3 WCHA) but could manage to only get just 1 goal out of it in the loss.
It was the first time all season the Badgers (12-14-2, 7-13-2 WCHA) tallied more than 40 shots on net in a single game. They out shot the Huskies 42-23 on the night in front of a season best crowd of 13,815.
Badgers players defenitly took coacing to heart in this one as shooting more was a major emphasis of the week. “The thing that I talked about was needing to get more shots, and producing those scoring chances, and we did that.” said Head Coach Mike Eaves. We had 33 and 43 shots, and over the course of the weekend we fired a lot more pucks… and we did execute in the games, we just didn’t get enough goals.”
After a scoreless 1st period the Badgers got an early power play opportunity in the 2nd period and they took advantage of it as sophomore Frankie Simonelli put Wisconsin up 1-0 just 3:56 into the period. Joseph LaBate and John Ramage got assists on the goal. The first period wasn’t without action despite ending scoreless as the Badgers managed to garner a power play opportunity and put St. Cloud State goalie Mike Lee under a lot of pressure. The problem for Bucky was that Lee was up to the task in a major way.
With a 1-0 lead the Badgers continued to poor on the offense and playing some great defense. That combination allowed the Badgers a 13-2 shot advantage in the 2nd period alone.
Bucky went into the 2nd intermission with that 1-0 lead and looked to stay aggressive and find goal number two on the night, but it wasn’t to come thanks to amazing play by Mike Lee who stopped 41 of 42 shots on the night and managed to stop 71 of 74 Badgers shots on the weekend.
“We had chances,” said Badgers defenseman Justin Schultz of Mike Lee. “We just couldn’t find a way to put anything in and that’s frustrating. He’s a good goalie.”
Things were looking pretty good for the Badgers as they were able to hold the Huskies scoreless through 2 and Landon Peterson looked good between the pipes for Wisconsin. However, less than a minute into the 3rd period period Nic Dowd found an opening and slotted home his 9th goal to tie the game at 1-1. Nicke Jensen and David Eddy were credited with the assists on the goal.
It stayed 1-1 through most of the rest of the 3rd period and just had a feeling that overtime was about to come. But just before 15 minutes had passed in the final period Jarrod Rabey found the back of the Badgers net and the Huskies had a 2-1 lead.
The Badgers finished the final 5 minutes with an absolute assault on the Huskies net but came up empty.
With the weekend sweep the chances of the Badgers getting home ice for the playoffs are slipping further and further away. “To be honest, we’re probably going to need some help,” Coach Eaves said. “That’s the long and short of it. And once again, what becomes our focus is what we have to do next. But if you want to take a step back and look at the big picture, we’re going to need some help.”
Wisconsin has a much needed bye week coming up this week and will look to correct some of the issues facing this team and continue to improve according to Head Coach Mike Eaves. The next series is the weekend of Feb. 17-18 as the Badgers welcome Denver to town for a weekend series.
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