MADISON, Wis. -- The University of Wisconsin entered Friday night's game looking for offense after a three-goal weekend in Houghton, Mich.
UND was kind enough to help out the Badgers with that problem.
A bad turnover, a missed defensive assignment and two lengthy five-on-three power plays was the cure Wisconsin needed to pile up the goals in a 5-3 victory over UND in front of 10,594 in Kohl Center.
The Badgers used the consecutive five-on-three power plays to break a 1-1 tie late in the first period and build a 3-1 lead. A few minutes into the second, they tacked on a fourth goal and chased UND starting goaltender Brad Eidsness, who was sharp a week ago against Maine but not in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association opener.
"You can't go on the road in the WCHA and shoot yourself in the foot," UND coach Dave Hakstol said. "You've got to go out and play a good, solid, sound 60 minutes. You've got to have discipline throughout your entire game."
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UND received goals from Mark MacMillan, Nick Mattson and Carter Rowney and generated enough offense to win the game. The Sioux ended up outshooting Wisconsin 27-26, but the glaring mistakes were the difference.
"If we stayed five-on-five and kept our heads on straight, we were playing pretty well," Sioux center Corban Knight said. "We were cycling well and getting chances. We just got away from our game and that was the outcome."
The Badgers, who had not scored five goals in a WCHA game since last November, made sure to make the Sioux pay for all of the mistakes.
Defenseman Justin Schultz blasted a rocket into the corner of the net on one of the five-on-threes. Forward Michael Mersch found a loose puck near the goal mouth at the tail end of another power play. Forward Derek Lee converted a bad turnover with a snipe from the slot. And forward Brendan Woods turned around Derek Forbort to score his first-career goal at 12:52 of the second, capping off the scoring.
"You look at the story of the first two periods and every time we got ourselves back into it, we put ourselves back in a hole," Hakstol said. "Their five-on-three power-play goal was a real good play by them and a great shot by Schultz, but we created that five-on-three. You can go through each of the five goals. I'll use the word discipline in all areas of our game. We took one mistake and turned it into another mistake in a lot of different situations."
The Sioux dropped to 2-2-1 overall and 0-1 in league play.
They will likely start Aaron Dell in the series finale. Dell played the final 34 minutes of the game, allowing one goal on eight shots. UND hopes he will be as sharp as he was here last year in earning a two-game sweep against the Badgers. The Sioux also know they will have to be better in front of Dell.
"Most of their goals were mistakes on our part -- penalties, giveaways and turnovers," Knight said. "We didn't play very well and we're aware of that. We're going to try to improve on some things we need to improve on.
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"We've just got to play a more fundamentally sound game, move on and forget about this one. Tomorrow is a new day. We can come back here and get a split in an opponent's building. We've got to focus on the positives and move on."
Wisconsin also is expected to start a different goaltender in the series finale. Freshman Landon Peterson was solid in stopping 19 of 22 shots, but Joel Rumpel will likely be rotated in at 7:07 tonight.
"We've got to get back to our game," Sioux defenseman Ben Blood said. "We didn't play good, solid hockey. That's what we've got to do tomorrow. We didn't play good fundamental hockey today, we didn't play Fighting Sioux hockey and it showed with the final score. It takes 60 minutes to win a hockey game.
"We made way too many mistakes tonight. You can't win games when you make that many mistakes."
Notes: Injured forwards Rocco Grimaldi and Brendan O'Donnell did not make the trip. . . The healthy scratches on the trip are third string goaltender Tate Maris and freshman forward Connor Gaarder. . . Wisconsin warmed up with an extra player because forward Jefferson Dahl was not 100 percent. Dahl ended up playing on the fourth line. . .Danny Kristo had a team-high five shots on goal. . . UND dressed two defensemen on the fourth line -- Joe Gleason and Dan Senkbeil. It was Senkbeil's UND debut.
Wisconsin 5,
UND 3
Key play: Brendan Woods' goal for a 5-3 Badger lead.
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Key player: Justin Schultz, goal, assist.
