Amid a sellout crowd of 15,237 at the Kohl Center Saturday, the No. 11 Wisconsin men's hockey team left the ice stunned after a 2-1 overtime loss to the No. 12 Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs.
Only a minute into the overtime period, sophomore forward Jordan Fulton deflected a shot from senior defenseman Travis Gawryletz for the winning goal.
Before the goal, it seemed Wisconsin had the momentum - especially when Jump Around"" made its Kohl Center debut - the deflection left the entire arena in a state of shock.
""It's disappointing, we had our chances,"" junior forward Ben Street said. ""Probably should have never went to overtime. That's what happens when its sudden death, that sort of thing can happen to you.""
That sort of thing is exactly what happened to Minnesota-Duluth Friday night, as the Badgers came back from a 1-0 deficit to win 3-1. Sophomore forward Blake Geoffrion tallied a goal and two assists in the win, giving him a team-high four games with at least three points.
But while Wisconsin and Geoffrion stole Friday's match, UMD sophomore goaltender Alex Stalock played the spoiler Saturday.
Stalock made a number of impressive saves on his way to stopping 31 shots on the night. The South St. Paul, Minn., native was the reason the Bulldogs were able to extend the game into overtime.
""The bottom line is we played better tonight than we did [Friday] night and we lost the game,"" head coach Mike Eaves said. ""[We] created more scoring chances, had more jump, played overall a better game.""
That twist of irony seems to be the norm this season for Wisconsin, which had a chance to clearly separate itself from the bottom half of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. Heading into Saturday's contest, Wisconsin was in sole possession of fourth place. A win would have given UW a four point lead over Minnesota-Duluth, along with a seven-game unbeaten streak.
But with the loss Saturday, the Badgers and Bulldogs are right back where they started at the beginning of the weekend. With Minnesota State closing in on the two - the Mavericks sit one point behind in fifth - the remainder of the season should be very interesting.
""You know it is going to be a fight, a race, a battle for the rest of the season,"" said senior forward Matthew Ford, who scored UW's lone goal Saturday. ""We are fighting teams that are right there, all right there in the mix, in the standings with us.
""It's going to be like that every weekend. It's going to be like playoff hockey. It's going to get us ready for the end of the season. It think that's good, we'll see where we are standing and how we will play in big games.""
While the team doesn't place blame on anyone besides itself for the loss, the playing of ""Jump Around"" did raise some superstitious comments from Eaves.
""It brought a smile to my face,"" Eaves said. ""I was trying to talk to the team and I wasn't going to talk over that so I just started bobbing with them and they got the look in their eyes 'let's get this done'. Unfortunately we didn't. Maybe we shouldn't play it again,"" Eaves said jokingly.
