Wisconsin men’s hockey: UW wins and ties against Notre Dame

The No. 5 Wisconsin Badgers (15-8-1 overall, 13-6-0-0-1-1 Big Ten) had a successful weekend against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (11-12-1 overall, 8-10-1-2-2-1 Big Ten), winning on Friday night and earning a tie on Saturday night in dramatic fashion.

Saturday’s game was a back and forth affair that saw the Badgers enter the third period with a 3-1 lead. This season, Wisconsin hadn’t not won a game (13-0) when leading after two periods so everything seemed to be pretty normal, right? Wrong!

Halfway through the third period, the Irish scored two goals in under a minute to tie the game 3-3. Linus Weissbach gave the Badgers the lead back with nine minutes left in the game however, three minutes later, Notre Dame again scored a pair of goals in under a minute to take a 5-4 lead.

With an extra skater on the ice, the Badgers had an offensive zone draw with just under 30 seconds left and Dylan Holloway won the face-off right back to Ty Pelton-Byce who sniped a goal (see tweet above) with 26.8 seconds left in regulation to send the game to overtime! Despite having to kill a penalty in the extra frame, the Badgers were able to force a tie with Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish ended up winning in the shootout, to earn the extra point in the Big Ten, which won’t really matter since the Big Ten isn’t using points to decide anything due to the irregular amount of games that teams will have played.

The Wisconsin players were, rightfully, frustrated after the game as they assumed they would win heading in the third period with a two goal lead. “With a two-goal lead going into the third, you expect to win those games,” Pelton-Byce said.

“It’s a bitter feeling,” Ty Emberson said after the game about blowing a lead in the third period.

On Friday night, the roles were reversed and Notre Dame was the team that blew a two-goal lead. A mere 31 seconds into the game the Fighting Irish got on the board and then scored again eight minutes later to have a 2-0 lead heading into the second period. Someone must’ve give a hell of a speech in the locker room during the first intermission and the Badgers scored two goals in the second period and then Weissbach scored two himself (career points No. 100 and 101) in the third period to give UW the 4-2 win.

Robbie Beydoun stopped 29 of 31 shots on Friday to get the win in net while Cameron Rowe made 31 saves (on 36 shots) on Saturday and made a couple of key stops in overtime to preserve the tie.

Cole Caufield scored twice over the weekend, pushing his nation-leading total to 19 and Pelton-Byce had four points on Saturday (two goals, two assists), his first four-point game as a Badger, and had six points (two goals, four assists) on the weekend. He now has scored 17 points in his last 11 games. Holloway had three assists on Saturday (and four for the weekend) giving him 21 helpers on the season.