Badgers score late to sweep top-ranked Gophers men's hockey

Bob Motzko didn't even try to put a happy face on things Thursday. After watching his Gophers open the Big Ten season with a loss to Wisconsin, the coach said he saw "zero positives," an assessment he hated to make.

Motzko felt much better about the effort Friday, but the No. 1 Gophers ended up with the same result. The 14th-ranked Badgers handed them a 3-2 loss, sweeping the series at 3M Arena at Mariucci.

The defeat was the third in a row for the Gophers (3-3, 0-2 Big Ten), their longest losing streak since early in the 2019-20 season.

The Badgers' Simon Tassy scored the winner with 2 minutes, 31 seconds remaining, getting his second goal of the game when he popped in a loose puck in front of Gophers goaltender Justen Close. Tassy also added an assist for Wisconsin (7-1, 2-0), which won its fourth in a row.

The Gophers never led against the dogged, disciplined Badgers, but they had a 31-21 edge in shots and twice tied the score. Aaron Huglen and Jimmy Clark supplied the goals in a game Motzko hopes will be a lesson for his young team.

"Losing the game is not fun," Motzko said. "But how we responded, how we played tonight throughout our lineup, it was a complete turnaround. We played our rear ends off.

"We've got to grow up from this. It's got to be something we grab hold of."

Their mandate was to forecheck more assertively and get pucks deep. They still had some inconsistency, particularly on defense.

The Badgers' first goal came on their first power play, when the Gophers gravitated toward the puck and left Tassy unattended in the left circle. He collected Christian Fitzgerald's perfect pass and gave his team a 1-0 lead at 6:12.

Close and the Badgers' Kyle McClellan were stellar in the nets, with each making highlight-reel saves on breakaways, odd-man rushes and point-blank shots. Huglen got past McClellan at 2:57 of the second period, stickhandling through the left circle and slinging in the puck from the slot. Wisconsin regained the lead at 12:48, when William Whitelaw scored on a rebound into the open side of the net.

Clark, a freshman who has had an outstanding start to his Gophers career, scored his first college goal to tie it 2-2 at 1:55 of the third. He dashed alone into the Wisconsin zone and cashed in on a pinpoint pass from Rhett Pitlick. That energized the Gophers, but Tassy's goal left them 0-for in the home portion of this season's Border Battle.

"It's tough," Clark said. "It was a lot better than yesterday, for sure. We worked harder."

The two losses follow a 2-1 defeat last Saturday at North Dakota. Though Motzko was disappointed by the loss, he was happy to find positives.