MINNEAPOLIS—At the end of each game against the Gophers, Mike Eaves used the same word to describe the previous 60 minutes of hockey: ""funky.""
The first night featured a pair of disallowed Gopher goals, Wisconsin only putting two pucks on net in the second period while getting out-shot and a late game-winning goal.
Two days later a scuffle early in the second dissipated a strong offensive burst from the Badgers and began a deluge of Minnesota power-play scores as Badger after Badger trekked to the penalty box and time after time the Gophers made them pay.
""Tonight we just shot ourselves in the foot taking penalties,"" senior captain Michael Davies said after Sunday's loss. ""I think they had five power-play goals, if I'm not mistaken. It's not fun to play that way. For them it's a lot of fun, going out there all the time on the power play.""
The Badgers were out-shot in both contests, an uncommon occurrence for them, just one weekend after peppering Michigan Tech goaltenders with 113 shots over two games.
Even the setting was off, since the first game was played in a basketball arena (the Target Center, home of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves) and the second was played on Sunday afternoon instead of the usual Saturday night timeslot because of a scheduling conflict. The second game also had a bit less meaning, as Wisconsin had already sewn up second place in the WCHA and perhaps had less to play for.
""You try to say the right things and prepare the same way to play a game, but there are certain things that obviously we didn't convince them of the way they needed to play today,"" Wisconsin head coach Mike Eaves said.
Bennett gets a chance
Sunday also marked a comeback chance for junior goaltender Brett Bennett, who saw the ice for the first time since Feb. 13. During the five-game stretch since his last appearance it had appeared that fellow junior Scott Gudmandson might have fully taken control of the team's netminder spot.
""He deserved this game based on how he'd been practicing, and I thought he was ready to step up there and give him a good performance,"" Eaves said.
But the team around him did not quite provide adequate support.
Bennett looked sharp early on, but as the penalties mounted he was put in more and more difficult situations. Three scores came from the backdoor, two on rebounds and one on a redirection, as Gophers were constantly setting up on his weak side and finding wide-open nets. Beyond that, he contended with Minnesota screens for most of the night, according to teammates.
His final numbers: 28 shots faced and six goals allowed, five with his team down at least one player.
""It's not his fault,"" senior captain Blake Geoffrion said. ""They had some backdoor goals, [we] took some dumb penalties, selfish penalties. I took one there at the end. It's definitely not his fault.""
Going forward
After the final horn, the question had to arise: Where to go from here? How does the flavor of an acrid defeat to a border rival, sprinkled with an excess of post-whistle scraps, carry over for a team entering its postseason run?
""We'll have [the players'] attention for sure, and hopefully we got a lot of things out of our system today,"" Eaves said, dismissing much of his team's poor performance as an aberration.
Wisconsin will open the WCHA playoffs at home with Alaska Anchorage, a team Wisconsin swept in their lone meeting this year.
The players were divided over the question of going forward with a bitter taste from this series. Two of the captains were blunt about whether that pungent loss could be a good thing,
""No, especially against these guys,"" senior defensemen Ryan McDonagh said. ""The momentum we would have had if we would have come out with a win would have been way better than having a bitter loss.""
""I think so, I'm pissed off. Obviously you've got to bounce back,"" Geoffrion said. ""[This] kind of sets us back to level again. We got a little too high maybe. Coach always says never too high, never too low, just stay balanced. Maybe this will balance us back out.""
Either way, Monday is a new start as the next phase of the season begins.
