Seven first-period penalty minutes, a game in which Wisconsin women’s hockey did not have a lead until the latter half of the third period, and an injury to their captain to boot could have ended much worse for the No. 1 Wisconsin Badgers (4-0-0, 0-0-0 WCHA), but they persevered for a 4-1 victory and a series sweep of the Boston University Terriers.
“I mean, it’s, you know, early in the process, and so you know a bunch of things are coming at us early on, and how do you respond?,” Johnson said of his team’s come-from-behind victory on Friday. “And so everything’s been really positive in that aspect. You know, I like the way we played for most of the game today, and you know just found a way to to get a goal.”
As Johnson continues the early-season push to discover what his new-look team featuring nine newcomers to UW can be, he got a new critical data point when his team entered the third period in a tie game.
“It comes down to a 20 minute game, third you know, fourth game of the season, and what what are you made of?” he remarked.
Badgers spend much of first period on PK
Johnson got an extended look at one of his special teams units during the first period, but likely not the one he would have preferred. The Badgers successfully killed a minor slashing penalty committed by winger Finley McCarthy early in the second period, but a boarding major that sent rookie Haley Box to the sin bin cost UW the first goal of the game.
“When you take seven minutes in penalties. It gets you out the out of rhythm real quick,” Johnson noted.
For a moment, it appeared Wisconsin would escape unscathed. With 15 seconds remaining on the infraction, defender Ava Murphy put a shot on the BU net, leaving the puck deep in the Terriers’ zone. As BU’s Eden Bergman turned up ice with the puck, however, Murphy and UW center Cassie Hall skated into one another, preventing either Badger from getting back on defense to slow a 2-on-1 rush the other way.
“We just got overzealous as Murphy went in, and you know looked at the offensive opportunity, said Johnson.” “And you know they popped out.”
Bergman passed the puck to fellow Terrier Lo LaChapelle in the neutral zone, Murphy attempted to disrupt LaChapelle’s possession of the puck by attempting a stick check from behind. LaChapelle managed to keep the puck on her stick, shed off Murphy, and scored on a flat-angle shot from the bottom of the right faceoff circle.
“The girl made a nice shot,” Johnson added.
Four Badgers making their debut inside LaBahn Arena this weekend featured as part of the major penalty kill, giving Johnson an opportunity early in the season to test his young roster.
Wisconsin women’s hockey captain injured
Wisconsin eventually knotted the game at 1-1 with a power-play goal of their own when Maggie Scannell’s pass gave Hall a wide-open look at the net with 10:26 remaining in the second period. Earlier in the middle frame, however, the Badgers lost their captain to an apparent injury.
5:19 into the second period, Kelly Gorbatenko blocked a shot from the point by Terriers defender Peyton Blaney. After preventing the puck from reaching goaltender Ava McNaughton, Gorbatenko appeared to grab her left arm. The senior then skated to the bench before heading down the Badgers tunnel with athletic trainer Stefanie Arndt.
Arndt initially returned to the bench without Gorbatenko, but the Chicago Mission product eventually came vato sit on the UW bench for the remaining handful of minutes to end the period. She also skated onto the ice after the period ended to meet McNaughton.
Johnson said Gorbatenko “will get examined Sunday and we’ll see that, but, yeah. Didn’t need that.”
Gorbatenko previously broke her left wrist when she was 14-years-old. She entered Saturday’s contest as the team’s leading goal-scorer with four and tied for a team-high six points. After scoring 28 goals a season ago as a junior, Gorbatenko is the WCHA’s top returning goal-scorer.
‘Funny goal’ gives Badgers the win
After forty minutes of up-and-down play, Wisconsin ramped up the offensive pressure in the third period. Over the first eleven minutes of the final frame, UW attempted 20 shots to BU’s four. After ten saves to open the frame by Terriers goaltender Sydney Fogu, it seemed the Badgers might have been bested by a netminder having a day to remember.
But, an odd bounce in front of the BU crease turned out to be just the luck Wisconsin needed to get the third-period scoring started. During an extended offensive zone possession, Murphy fired a slapshot from the point that hit off Scannell. Hall coralled the puck in the right corner, sending it to the front of the net where it deflected off the stick of a BU defender and into the net.
“In between the second and third period, we kind of settled down, played as a team,” Hall said of her team’s performance.
With a bevvy of scoring opportunities, it took an awkward bounce to get a puck through. Johnson looked at that fact as a learning opportunity for his team. No matter how many chances his team generates, sometimes it will not be enough.
“Some nights, you know, there’s nights that you do get that bounce, and you get a funny goal to maybe win a game or to get a lead,” the winningest coach in the history of women’s college hockey noted. “But there’s other nights where it doesn’t happen.”
Later in the third period, Wisconsin added a goal off the faceoff by Nela Lopušanová for her third of the weekend and continuing her line’s dominance before Laney Potter scored an empty-netter to deliver the final 4-1 result.
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