Talk about a bounce back… after the top-ranked Wisconsin Badgers suffered their worst loss in two years at the hands of the now-No. 2 Minnesota Gophers on Friday night, the Badgers came out Saturday to throttle the Gophers, winning 7-2 to split the series and end the first installment of the Border Battle on a high note. Wisconsin remains a unanimous number one atop the polls.
I wrote in the Friday night recap that I would not want to skate against an angry Badger team after the 5-1 loss in game one.
Well, Maggie Scannell, filling in as the top-line center while Adéla Šapovalivová recovers from injury, scored just 14 seconds into the game. Kirsten Simms, who returned from a knee injury for the Minnesota series, added another just two and a half minutes later, and the Badgers were off to the races.
The Gophers did pull within one after a shorthanded goal late in the first, but Kelly Gorbatenko and Laila Edwards added to the Wisconsin lead in the second period.
Caroline Harvey scored the first goal of the third, giving the Badgers a 5-1 lead. Abbey Murphy added another goal for Minnesota on the power play, but Emma Venusio got it back with a power play goal for Wisconsin before Gorbatenko scored again for good measure.
Wisconsin (11-1, 7-1 WCHA) was a bit shaky on Friday, turning the puck over in the defensive zone and struggling to keep Minnesota off the puck. It was especially uncharacteristic of Caroline Harvey, who felt like she was trying to do a little too much at times. Saturday was the polar opposite. The back line was phenomenal at limiting a high-powered Minnesota offense to just 21 shots, nine of which came in the final period when the outcome wasn’t in doubt.
After an uncharacteristically quiet offensive performance on Friday, five Badgers posted three-point games in Saturday’s win, including Kelly Gorbatenko, Kirsten Simms, Caroline Harvey, Cassie Hall, and Vivian Jungels.
Minnesota (10-2, 6-2 WCHA) had to be feeling good after ending its 10-game losing streak against the Badgers on Friday, but Saturday’s drubbing makes Friday look more like a fluke than anything, a game where Wisconsin was obviously out of sorts with line changes and working players back in after injury layoffs. It was a wake-up call, and the Badgers responded as you’d expect a championship-caliber team to respond.
Saturday’s win was more than a feel-good bounce back; it also put Wisconsin back on top of the WCHA standings after the Gophers pulled even with the tiebreaker advantage on Friday. Obviously, there is plenty of season left to play out, but the Badgers avoided an early two-game hole with a big series against Ohio State coming up later this month.
The Badgers now get a much-needed bye. They nearly lost another player on Saturday when top-scorer Cassie Hall blocked a shot and had to be helped off the ice, but Hall returned after the intermission. Either way, a couple of weeks of rest will do wonders for the injury report before Wisconsin visits St. Cloud State on November 14-15, hopefully with a full roster.
