MADISON — Brandon Naurato stood behind the boards of the bench, the No. 2 Michigan hockey team crowding around him. Only his team could hear the words flying out of his rapidly moving mouth. But his animated facial expression and wildly gesticulating hands told an observer all they’d need to know. The Wolverines coach wasn’t happy. Not one bit.
It was an understandable reaction. Naurato’s Michigan — ranked second in the country and a national championship favorite — was down 3-1 in the third period of its matchup against No. 13 Wisconsin. It was the last gasp of a game in which the Wolverines (24-6-1 overall, 15-5-1 Big Ten) inflicted multiple wounds upon themselves; wounds that they couldn’t recover from and that doomed them to a 4-1 upset loss to the Badgers (19-10-2, 12-9-0).
“I felt like Wisconsin earned that win more than us,” Naurato said. “I felt like to a man, we got outworked. I think they got to their game plan and really played it the whole game, and good on them, and we just never got to it.”
With about six minutes left on the clock in the first period, the Crease Creatures — Wisconsin’s student section — were already serenading Michigan. The song they were singing was a simple one.
“You can’t do that!”
Indeed, for much of the first period, the Wolverines weren’t able to do much of anything. Michigan stumbled out of the gate. An array of misplaced passes, careless turnovers and wildly errant shots were all the Wolverines had to show after a frenetic first 15 minutes. In fact, the inciting incident for the chants was the overturning of a goal from senior forward T.J. Hughes, the closest Michigan came to bearing any fruit from its efforts.
In the dying seconds of the first, sophomore forward Will Horcoff briefly took away any reason for the Creatures to sing when he rifled a puck into the top right corner of the Badgers’ net. But as the Wolverines entered the second period, it didn’t seem like they were going to give the home crowd any other reasons to stay silent. Michigan continued to misplace passes and turn the puck over. Its defense didn’t offer much resistance either, allowing Wisconsin the lion’s share of the puck.
Almost halfway through the second period, the Badgers started to take what the Wolverines were putting on a plate for them. Wisconsin took control of the puck, and Michigan forced the Badgers to the boards, but couldn’t dispossess them. Badgers forward Quinn Finley bundled in a puck off a driving shot from defenseman Aidan Dubinsky. The Wolverines had crowded Wisconsin’s offensive zone, but struggled to knock the Badgers off the puck — just a little bit extra physicality, and Michigan might’ve thwarted the attack.
Less than two minutes later, senior defenseman Luca Fantilli lost control of a puck, which Wisconsin forward Vasily Zelenov took to the house to put the Badgers in the driver’s seat. And with three minutes left to go in the period, Wisconsin forward Adam Pietila drove in the nail. The Wolverines deflected a shot and had ample opportunities to clear the puck, but couldn’t get it out of harm’s way, and Pietila pounced by driving the puck in.
All three goals shared something in common —Michigan could’ve prevented them. The Wolverines could’ve used the men it had in the zone to knock the Badgers off the puck. It could’ve avoided an unnecessary turnover that led to Zelenov’s breakaway goal. And it could’ve cleared the puck before Pietila got to the deflection, but it didn’t.
“We need to talk a little bit more,” senior forward Josh Eernisse said. “We need to be a little bit more connective, and we need to move pucks just a little bit faster to get ourselves more time and space.”
Michigan didn’t necessarily worsen the bleeding in the third period. But they didn’t do enough to stem it either, failing to get out of their own defensive zone for much of the period. And Wisconsin forward Jack Horbach’s last-gasp empty-netter confirmed what had been apparent since the second — the Wolverines had thoroughly beaten themselves on a night where they couldn’t do much of anything.
