In a season full of them, it was another punch to the gut for Wisconsin.
The Badgers were two seconds away from their third win of the season on Saturday when Seth Ambroz scored his fourth goal of the weekend to give Minnesota a 4-4 tie.
Wisconsin rebounded to win a seven-round shootout for the extra point in the Big Ten standings, which soothed at least some of the pain of allowing a lead to escape in the final three seconds of regulation for the second time this month.
“Quite honestly, we’re going to take whatever we can get,” said Badgers goaltender Joel Rumpel, who made 42 saves. “We battled hard, played a good game. It’s obviously a little heartbreaking with two seconds left to give one up like that, but, honestly, I’ll take it.”
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Boston University forced a 3-3 tie with the Badgers on Jan. 9 by scoring with 2.2 seconds on the clock. Ambroz needed an extra two-tenths of a second on Saturday to inflict more damage on Wisconsin.
He slammed in a loose puck at the top of the crease for his second goal of the night. Combined with two goals in Friday’s 7-5 Gophers win, Ambroz has 11 of his 35 collegiate goals against the Badgers.
“The puck’s just bouncing my way [against Wisconsin] for some reason,” said Ambroz, who entered the series with just three goals this season. “I don’t really know how to explain it.”
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The Gophers left the Kohl Center worried about sophomore winger Connor Reilly, the team’s leading goal scorer, who was injured on a knee-on-knee hit from Wisconsin’s Corbin McGuire three minutes into the second period.
Reilly did not return and his status is “not good,” Gophers coach Don Lucia said. Lucia said he didn’t have a further prognosis.
The hit, for which McGuire was given a major penalty for kneeing, clearly upset Lucia.
“Those are career injuries,” he said. “You stick out a knee and go knee-on-knee with guys — we talk about wanting to clean up our game, and that’s just a bad, bad play.”
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Lucia said he was “shocked” that McGuire wasn’t ejected from the game and added that he expects the Badgers freshman to face supplemental discipline from the Big Ten.
McGuire later scored the deciding goal in the seventh round of the shootout, which the Badgers won 3-2 to drop Minnesota to 0-6 in shootouts over the last two seasons of Big Ten play.
“That’s a tough play. I’m not the kind of player that goes out looking to do stuff like that or anything,” McGuire said of the hit. “I want to start off by saying my prayers are with Reilly. I hope that he’s OK and he can get back to playing soon if he is injured.”
The Badgers (2-16-4, 0-6-2-2 Big Ten) held Minnesota’s national-best power play to one goal on the five-minute advantage after McGuire’s penalty. They also killed a Gophers five-on-three power play in the third period and scored on their final two power-play chances.
Just before a hooking penalty to Minnesota’s Sam Warning expired, Cameron Hughes scored with 1:13 remaining in regulation to give Wisconsin a 4-3 lead.
Hughes was the second Badgers freshman to score his first collegiate goal on Saturday. Ryan Wagner redirected a shot past Gophers goaltender Adam Wilcox (21 saves) just nine seconds into the game, tying for the fastest goal from the opening faceoff in Badgers history.
Jake Bischoff answered later in the first period for Minnesota (12-9-3, 3-2-3-0), and Ambroz tapped home the rebound of a Leon Bristedt shot off the left post in the second period for a power-play goal and a 2-1 lead.
Wisconsin tied it with a Grant Besse power-play goal in the third, but Christian Isackson answered 30 seconds later for a 3-2 Minnesota lead.
Badgers defenseman Kevin Schulze scored midway through the third period on a one-timer off a pass from Adam Rockwood to make it 3-3.
In addition to the worry about Reilly’s injury, the Gophers headed home shaking their heads about not sealing a win.
“It’s frustrating because we continuously can’t close games,” Ambroz said. “That’s been our biggest problem so far this year. We were up 2-1 going into the third and we couldn’t close. They tie it up and we score again and then let up another one.”
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