1
Wisconsin will take them as they can get them.
The Badgers tallied a power play goal on a deflection in
front of the net in overtime Friday night to snap a three-game losing streak
with a 2-1 win over Quinnipiac (2-3-0).
Wisconsin (2-3-0) has struggled to score goals this season,
notching just four through the course of the three-game skid. Friday, the
Badgers controlled the action for most of the evening but Bobcat goaltender
Justin Eddy, fresh off a 51-save performance a week ago against Michigan, came
up with 46 stops to keep the game close.
Eddy, though, did not do a good job covering rebounds,
yielding plenty of second chances for Wisconsin. The Badgers scored both of
their goals after Eddy failed to secure an initial save.
Late in the overtime session, Wisconsin defenseman Dan Boeser fired a puck toward the net and Andy Wozniewski, a defenseman playing
forward on the power play, deflected the puck from the slot, handcuffing Eddy.
The puck trickled through Eddy’s pads and as the goalie spun to corral the puck
he and a Bobcat defenseman inadvertently helped push the puck across the goal
line.
Wozniewski, who is 6-5, 221 pounds, proved an imposing
presence on the power play.
“It is something we talked about in the summer a little bit
because he is such a big, strong young man,” Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves said.
“It looks like he is going to be there for a little while longer.”
Rene Bourque tied the game in the second period with his
first goal of the season.
Just five seconds into a Badger power play, Dan Boeser’s
shot from the slot caromed directly to Bourque, who put it past Eddy.
Bourque, the team’s leading goal scorer last year, was
relieved to find the net.
“It felt really good just to take the weight off my
shoulders, just to kind of get that off my mind and quit thinking about it so
much,” Bourque said. “Boeser made a real nice play and the rebound came right to
me.”
The goal put the exclamation point on a wild 10-minute,
21-second sequence that included nine penalties, the bulk awarded to Wisconsin.
Beginning at 4:13 in the second period, the Badgers spent more than eight
minutes killing penalties, including 2:15 of 5-on-3 skating. Quinnipiac, though,
only managed four shots on goal during the stretch, while the Badgers notched
three quality short-handed shots, including a breakaway for Adam Burish a minute
and a half into the first penalty. Burish tried to go 5-hole, but Eddy was true
to the challenge.
Burish was called for the evening’s most egregious penalty
at the 7:58 mark in the second period, when he was given a five-minute major and
game misconduct for checking from behind.
“Their heart is in right place but there is a balance
between smart and hard,” said Eaves regarding the penalties. “So I love their
passion but like the guys were saying after the game, ‘we have got to be
smarter.’”
Wisconsin, though, skated as if they were on the power play
during the stretch. The hard work paid off, resulting in a pair of tripping
calls against Quinnipiac in a 38-second stretch that turned the Badgers lengthy
penalty killing spree into what proved to be a pair of brief power plays.
“When we killed penalties our back were against the wall
and it seemed to give us momentum,” Eaves said. “We were like, ‘hey let’s get it
going here.’ It was nice for something like that to happen. We talked about,
‘let’s get the job done.’ They went out did a great job.”
With 4:22 left to play in the third period, Eddy stoned
another breakaway, this time making a nice kick save on UW sophomore wing Nick Licari. Eddy was momentarily injured on the play after his teammate collided
with him, pressing the back of Eddy’s leg against the post.
Despite plenty of good chances, Wisconsin only managed one
goal in regulation.
“There were rebounds there for us,” Eaves said. “Our guys
had a tendency and say, ‘I thought that was a pretty good pass I just made.’
Meanwhile a shot has been taken a rebound is there and we are going, ‘oh there
is a rebound.’”
Though Wisconsin controlled the action, Quinnipiac held a
1-0 lead after the first period.
Just moments after Eddy fended off a good Wisconsin scoring
opportunity, Quinnipiac took advantage of an odd-man rush to score the game’s
opening goal with just 33 seconds left in the first period.
Bobcat forward Aaron Ludwig got a step on the Badgers
defense in the slot and took a tape-to-tape pass from defenseman Joe Testa.
Wisconsin freshman center Andrew Joudrey hooked Ludwig from behind but not
before Ludwig flung a wrist shot on net, the momentum of which, along with
Joudrey’s hook, sent the two players sliding toward Wisconsin goalie Bernd Bruckler, just behind the puck.
The puck found a way between Bruckler’s pads and began to
skirt toward the goal line as Ludwig collided with Bruckler, causing Bruckler’s
left skate to give the puck an extra push on the way over the goal line. After a
brief conference between referee Brad Albers and the goal judge, Ludwig was
credited with his second goal of the season.
The shot appeared destined for a course to the net in any
case, and Joudrey would have been called for a minor penalty had the goal not
counted.
The tally marked the fifth time in as many games that the
Badgers have yielded in a goal in either the first or last minute of a period.
Score by period
| 1 | 2 | 3 | OT | Final |
|---|
| Quinnipiac | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Wisconsin | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Shots on goal by period
| 1 | 2 | 3 | OT | Final |
|---|
| Quinnipiac | 5 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 17 |
| Wisconsin | 13 | 19 | 15 | 1 | 48 |
Scoring summary
First Period
QU 1: Aaron Ludwig (2) from Joe Testa (1) at 19:27.
Second Period
UW 1: Rene Bourque (1) from Dan Boeser (2) and Jake Dowell (2), PP, at 12:39.
Third period
none
Overtime
UW 2: Andy Wozniewski (1) from Boeser (3) and Bourque (2), PP, at 1:38
Saves
QU: Justin Eddy, 46
UW: Bernd Bruckler, 16