GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- One of North Dakota's most dominating periods of hockey this season did nothing for the Fighting Sioux in the victory column tonight.
North Dakota outshot visiting Wisconsin 17-3 in the first period and fired 12 shots on net before the Badgers got their first, yet came out of the first period with just a 2-1 lead.
Behind 31 saves from Scott Gudmandson, Wisconsin rallied with three power-play goals to beat the Fighting Sioux 4-3 and take three out of four possible points in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association series.
Goals by sophomore wing Bret Hextall (Manhattan Beach, Calif.) and senior center Chris VandeVelde (Moorhead, Minn.) highlighted a powerful opening period by the Sioux.
But Wisconsin's top goal scorer, Blake Geoffrion, scored his 14th of the season on Wisconsin's first shot of the period at 9:28 to allow the Badgers to come out of the period trailing only 2-1.
It proved to be critical. Michael Parks scored on a clean breakaway to tie it at 2-2 at 5:56 of the second period and Ben Street put the Badgers ahead to stay at 7:55 on a power play goal, Wisconsin's third goal of the game despite just seven shots on net at that point.
A power-pay goal by Brendan Smith at 13:09 of the third period shot the Badger lead to 4-2, enough to offset Hextall's second goal of the game and sixth of the season with 15.5 seconds left and the goalie pulled for an extra attacker.
The victory improved Wisconsin's record to 6-1-1 in its last eight games at Engelstad Arena. The Badgers are the only opponent to have a winning record overall against UND in the new arena since it opened in 2001.
Gudmandson was key in making it happen for the Badgers tonight.
"They had seven shots alone on a 5-on-3 power play and 12 shots before we had out first one,'' Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves said. "He (Gudmandson) was tremendous. He bought us some time.''
The Sioux outshot the Badgers 34-24 but Gudmandson's strong play made the difference.
It was a night of twists and turns for North Dakota. "We wanted to come out and get off to a much better start than we did Friday night,'' coach Dave Hakstol said. "We were able to get the one-goal lead. We couldn't build on that in the second period.''
Hakstol said the Sioux were not frustrated at not being able to build a bigger cushion in the strong first period. "I didn't feel like it was frustrating,'' Hakstol said. "Their goaltender played well, we did a of good things. It was a good start to our hockey game, but you have to build on that.''
The Sioux took four penalties in the second period and that seemed to disrupt the flow of their strong opening stanza.
"We had to kill penalties, gave up a power-play goal, and we just could not get our legs back the rest of that second period,'' Hakstol said. "It really took us out of that period.''
Hakstol came out of the game seeing an area that needs immediate improvement for the Sioux. "Our maturity as a team has to improve,'' he said. "Untimely penalties, falling asleep just for a second, allowing a guy a breakaway out of the offensive zone when you know it's something your opponent does and does pretty well. Little things like that. Those are maturity issues and those are issues we're not far away on. But when you play good teams, and Wisconsin is a very good team -- we haven't played a poor team over the last month -- you can't have immaturity in your game and consistently win games.''
Brad Eidsness finished with 20 saves for the Sioux, now 6-6-2 in the WCHA and 9-6-3 overall. Wisconsin improved to 8-4-2 in the WCHA and 11-5-2 overall.
SIOUX NOTES: Wisconsin finished 3-for-8 on the power play, UND 2-for-7 ... Sophomore forward Jason Gregoire extended his career-long point streak to seven games with an assist on Hextall's second goal. It is the longest scoring streak by a Sioux this season ... Freshman Danny Kristo (Eden Prairie, Minn.) led the Sioux with five shots on goal with VandeVelde and David Toews (Winnipeg, Manitoba) following with four ... This is the first time since December 2006 that UND has gone tmhree straight games at home without a win ... UND and Wisconsin tied 3-3 Friday night ... On a bitterly cold night, a sellout crowd of 11,760 turned out.
Virg Foss covered Fighting Sioux hockey for 35 seasons for the Grand Forks Herald until his retirement. He now reports exclusively on UND home games for FightingSioux.com.
~Go Sioux~
