Wisconsin comes up short after leading in both games. Where do they go from here?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. After the Badgers dropped back-to-back winnable games against Minnesota, watching Wisconsin men’s hockey is starting to feel like insanity.
It almost looked like the Wisconsin Badgers (2-8 overall, 1-5 B1G) flipped the script on Friday night in Madison. Junior Kyle Kukkonen scored just over a minute into the second period to establish a 2-0 lead. But from that moment on, the Badgers committed a slew of self-inflicted mistakes that made it impossible to overcome the No. 3 Minnesota Gophers (9-1 overall, 4-0-1 B1G).
Following Kukkonen’s goal, Wisconsin took three consecutive penalties, virtually one right on top of the other. Yet, after all that, sophomore William Gramme protected the lead. The Badgers earned a four-on-four on the tail-end of their third penalty kill, and the Gophers scored a shorthanded goal seconds after Wisconsin started their power play.
The Badgers then took a fourth and fifth penalty in the second period, as juniors Jack Horbach and Simon Tassy roughed up Minnesota’s Matthew Wood in a scrum near the Wisconsin net. Wood also earned the box for some reason, but the Gophers were back on the power play, nonetheless. This time they made the Badgers pay, courtesy of last year’s leading scorer, Jimmy Snuggerud.
The collapse was complete when Snuggerud buried his second with 7:15 remaining in the third, sending the Badgers to a 3-2 loss.
Saturday would start with some similar second-period issues, with the Gophers taking a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal. The Badgers bounced back with the equalizer from graduate student Ryland Mosley before sophomore Quinn Finley brought the crowd to its feet, scoring the go-ahead goal with 32.7 seconds remaining in the second.
Wisconsin then proceeded to do what they haven’t done in the last 29 games where they held a lead after the second period – they lost.
Minnesota tacked on another power-play goal late in the third to send the game to overtime, and then literally snatched the victory out of thin air with a demoralizing goal right in front of the student section.
It’s worth saying: the goal was awesome. Snuggerud floated a crossing pass in front of the net, and Brodie Ziemer jousted it out of the air and past Gramme for the game-winner.
The Badgers got a point, but that doesn’t even register on the consolation radar after blowing two games in a much-needed Border Battle. There is no reason to believe the Badgers are going to score goals until we see it. They’ve been held to two goals or less in nine of their ten games this season, the only three-goal outburst coming in an overtime win against Lindenwood. Finley has been excellent, but he’s also the only consistent goal-scorer on the team. They need guys to start filling the net, simple as that.
Gramme got the nod in both games after senior Tommy Scarfone was listed as day-to-day following an injury last week, and he played as well as can be expected against a Gopher team littered with NHL draft picks. He faced six-and-a-half minutes of power play offense when the Badgers kept shooting themselves in the foot and brought them out on the other end still holding the lead. The two regulation goals against him Saturday night were both on the power play before the acrobatic overtime winner. At some point, you have to pick up your goaltender.
I know it sounds like eternal optimism, but there is still a lot of season left to play. I’m a realist, so I need to see it to believe it, but you have to think the levee breaks and they start to eventually find some goals. Oddly enough, the sportsbooks are bullish on the Badgers. They are currently +2800 to win it all, the 13th best odds of anybody. As someone who might hold the world record for bad beats, I tend to think they usually know better than me.
Their next chance to right the ship comes in Happy Valley this weekend against the No. 18 Penn State Nittany Lions.