Wolverines Beat Badgers

Saturday, November 24, 2001
Yost Ice Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

After opening the College Hockey Showcase with a loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers the Wolverines looked to get back on track against the visiting Badgers of Wisconsin in game two. The Badgers lost a close game to Michigan State last night while Michigan was dropping their opener. Last nights loss to Minnesota was the third straight home defeat for the Wolverines - they shouldn't need any further motivation for this contest.

Michigan started the game flying around the ice, much more active than they were in last nights game against Minnesota. Unfortunately they were a little to active as the Wolverines picked up the first penalty of the game just thirty seconds into the contest. Fortunately for the Wolverines the penalty kill showed up in the early going, killing off the penalty without allowing a single shot on goal by the Badgers.

With 14:20 left in the first period it would be the Wolverines who would get a chance on the power play after the Badgers picked up their first penalty of the game. Moving the puck well inside the Badger zone the Wolverines got their first goal of the night with 1:17 left in the power play. Cammalleri took a pass near the blue line. From there he fired a slap shot that beat the Badger goalie. Assists on the goal went to Shouneyia and Werner.

Over the next six or seven minutes the teams battled up and down the ice with each team getting called for some penalties. First, there was a set of matching penalties that left each team skating with four men on the ice. The Badgers would pick up a penalty putting Michigan back on the power play, but this time the Badgers killed off the penalty without giving up a goal. With 6:25 left in the period the Wolverines would be called for interference, once again putting the Badgers on the power play. This time the Badgers would take advantage of the extra man as they made a great move up the ice and beat Blackburn clean to tie the game at one goal each.

The Badgers would get their second goal of the game just thirty seconds later to take the lead. With the puck bouncing around in front of the net the Badgers got enough of a stick on it to chip it into the Michigan net and take the lead. It did appear that the puck may have deflected off of Shouneyia's stick as he was attempting to clear the puck. Even if it did the puck was in the Michigan net and the Badgers were in the lead.

Michigan would get one more power play chance in the final three minutes of the period, but they would not be able to take advantage of the extra man. The first period came to an end with the Badgers leading by a score of two to one. The Wolverines held a slight edge in shots on goal with a twelve to ten count.

The action would be fast and furious at the start of the second period with the Badgers picking up a penalty with just over one minute gone in the period. With 1:36 left in their first penalty the Badgers would pick up their second penalty to give the Wolverines a two man advantage. Just thirty-two seconds later, with 1:04 still left on the original penalty, the Wolverines would get their second power play goal of the game to get back to even. Nystrom got a nice pass over to Shouneyia who had a clean shot to tie the game. Assists went to Nystrom and Werner on the goal and the Wolverines still had 1:29 of power play time left. Unfortunately for the Wolverines they were unable to get that all important third goal.

For most of the remainder of the period the action would continue up and down the ice, but neither team was able to score the go ahead goal. This would all change as the clock closed in on two minutes left in the period. After missing a wide open shot Michigan would come up with a goal to take the lead when Komisarek got off a shot and scored the goal, unassisted. Like the somewhat strange second goal for the Badgers this one appeared to have deflected off a Wisconsin defender, ending up in the Badger net, giving the Wolverines the lead.

Things started to get a little chippy in the late going of this period when, with just 1:30 left in the period, a small altercation would take place. The end result would be two coincidental penalties, one against a Badger and one against a Wolverine (these two players were sent to the locker rooms early to give them some extra cooling off time). Michigan was also called for the original penalty giving the Badgers a power play late in the second period. The Wolverines were able to hold the Badgers at bay and the second period came to an end with Michigan holding the three to two lead. The Wolverines held a much larger edge in shots on goal, ending the period with a twenty-seven to fifteen edge.

The Badgers started the third period with thirty-one seconds of power play time, but the Wolverines killed off the remainder of the late second period penalty. The action would continue up and down the ice until Michigan would once again put the Badgers on the power play with a penalty just over three minutes into the final period. Off the delay call the Badgers had their goalie off the ice and were looking to get the score before the actual penalty was called, however, it would be Michigan who would score the goal while waiting for the penalty to be called. Since it came off a delay penalty the goal was waved off, keeping the Wolverine lead to one goal. With the Badger power play winding down the Wolverines would score a short-handed goal to extend their lead to two goals. The short-handed goal was scored by Komisarek who let a slap shot go from right point. The lone assist on this goal went to Murray.

The Badgers were not done though as they scored their third goal of the game less than thirty seconds later to get back to within one. The chippy play would continue for the remainder of the period with each team picking up some penalties and each team killing off the ensuing power plays. With 1:20 left in the game Wisconsin called their one minute time out to figure out what they were going to do.

The Badgers left their goalie in the game, but once the face off was over and the action moved into the Wolverine zone the Badger goalie came out of the game giving the Badgers the extra attacker (the goalie came out with 1:13 left to play). With 39.8 seconds left in regulation time the Badgers were called for a penalty to obvious to be ignored by the officials ending the Wisconsin power play. The Badger goalie came back into the game for the face off, but as soon as the puck moved to Michigan's end of the ice he was back off the ice and the teams were back to even as Wisconsin looked for the tying goal. With just 7.3 seconds left in the game Michigan would break the puck out of their zone, feed a pass to Helminen breaking up the ice, who would bury the puck in the empty net to seal the victory for the Wolverines. The lone assist on the goal went to Ryznar. The game came to an end with Michigan winning by a score of five to three. The Wolverines also finished the game with a thirty-nine to twenty-six edge in shots on goal.

Tonight the Wolverines showed up and played a full sixty minutes of hockey. While they still gave up three goals one of them looked like a funny deflection off a Michigan defender, while the other two were simply good shots that would have been very difficult to stop. If Michigan had played this way last night that game would have been far more competitive than it turned out being, but tonight the game belonged to the Wolverines. Michigan returns to CCHA play next weekend when they have a home and home series against Ferris State.