After Friday's disheartening 2-0 loss to No. 4 Colorado College, the No. 13 Wisconsin men's hockey team seemed determined to come back Saturday with a vengeance.
However, the stellar play of Tiger junior forward Chad Rau once again stole the show, as the Eden Prairie, Minn., native scored his fourth shorthanded goal against UW in four games this season.
Any loss is disheartening,"" UW head coach Mike Eaves said. ""As we talked to the guys after last night's game you think its dark and today it seems a little darker.""
The Badgers (4-7-1 WCHA, 8-9-3 overall) came out strong to start the game, scoring on their very first shift of the night, which would be the only bright spot of the game.
The front line of sophomore forwards John Mitchell and Ben Grotting, along with freshman Sean Dolan got the start, and the intensity that they had brought Friday night carried over as Grotting sent a pass back to freshman defenseman Brendan Smith at the point, who sent a rocket at CC freshman goaltender Richard Bachman.
The puck was tipped on its way to the net, and bounced up into the air off of Bachman's pads. Both Dolan and Mitchell were in front of the crease, and Dolan was able to get his stick up in the air and bat the puck into the net, bouncing it off of the right pipe.
The play was reviewed and upheld, giving UW the 1-0 lead only 13 seconds in.
However, the intensity that UW had would slowly fade away. Two penalty kills soon after the goal drained any hope of Wisconsin continuing to pressure Bachman, and the Tigers (13-3-0, 14-6-0) would take advantage.
The second period saw no scoring, only opportunity upon opportunity.
Dolan received a pass in the slot from Grotting, and had a one-on-one opportunity with Bachman, but was unable to convert. Later in the period, sophomore forward Andy Bohmbach had two straight chances, a shot from the slot created a rebound right back to him, but he was unable to put the rebound in either.
But all of these opportunities resulted in nothing, and Wisconsin took its 1-0 lead into the third period.
Five minutes into the third, Rau stole a pass from Smith and took it the distance, beating UW junior goaltender Shane Connelly. Rau went to Connelly's stick side, and slid the puck through the five-hole to tie to game.
The shorthanded goal was Rau's fifth of the season, fourth against UW.
""He is a good player. We are definitely not trying to give him those opportunities,"" UW junior forward Ben Street said. ""But he is an opportunist and he has made us pay for a couple of bad passes. Those are things that we have to look at and make sure that they don't happen anymore. Those things hurt, those are times when we should be scoring and he is coming down and putting it in on us.""
Third period breakdowns were the story of the weekend, as CC scored four goals, two in each game, in the final frame.
The Tigers would later score the game-winning goal as sophomore forward Andrea Vlassopoulos picked off a pass to keep the puck in the offensive zone and while in between the circles passed to senior forward Scott McCulloch, who put the puck high past Connelly just outside of the crease.
An empty net goal by sophomore forward Mike Testwuide would ice the Badgers, giving Colorado College the 3-1 victory.
One of the main topics of discussion over the series was the loss of four total player - three for UW and one for CC - who were playing in the World Junior Championships in the Czech Republic.
However, while Wisconsin was without three of its best players, they are not using that as an excuse for the weekend sweep.
""You can't really replace those guys, they are an important part of our team,"" Street said. ""But we are not going to use that as an excuse either, we had chances to win. We are confident in the group that we put on the ice and we let one get away both nights.""
With the sweep behind them, Eaves feels that this is a turning point for his young squad.
""This is a really important time for us right now as a team, and if we can learn our lessons we are going to be a stronger group of people as we move forward here,"" Eaves said. ""That is our task and those are the things that we can control.
