It is fitting that the last two rounds of the NCAA tournament are called the Frozen Four. As the Badgers fell to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, Wisconsin had a frozen four of their own - their senior forwards. Brittany Ammerman, Blayre Turnbull, Karley Sylvester and Katy Josephs each put shots on the net, but none of them could put points on the board in their team’s 1-3 loss.
It was a freshman connection for the Badgers that got them their only goal of the game. Center Emily Clark won her seventh-straight face-off in the game and sent the puck to Annie Pankowski at the top of the circle. Pankowski fired a laser past Minnesota junior goaltender Amanda Leveille just 52 seconds into the second period.
After a scoreless first period, UW had the lead and the momentum for the early part of the second period. They were getting shots on net and really testing Leveille on every look. Then, just under nine minutes into the period the Gophers’ leading scorer, junior forward Hannah Brandt, got her team on the board. That opened the floodgates for Minnesota.
“Well, I think the one thing you saw is when a team scores a goal, they get a lot of energy from it," Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson said. “They capitalized on a play and energized it.”
The Gophers thrived off that energy, and they took the lead less than two minutes later. Junior forward Maryanne Menefee put in a rebound off a shot by sophomore Megan Wolfe, and Badger goaltender Ann-Reneé Desbiens couldn’t get to it in time.
Five minutes later, Ammerman was sent to the penalty box for tripping, and Minnesota went on the power play. After 30 seconds against Wisconsin’s top-ranked penalty kill, the Gophers’ freshman forward Kelly Pannek sent back a rebound of her own to give her team the two-goal advantage.
It was only the fifth power-play goal the Badgers allowed all season, killing 113 of 118 attempts.
“I mean, when’s the last time Wisconsin even gave up a power play goal?” Gophers’ coach Brad Frost asked. “That was obviously huge for us and was kind of a back-breaker for them.”
From that point, it seemed as though UW was just waiting for the second period to end so they could regroup for the third. They kept the final five minutes of the second clean and came out into the third attacking.
An initially aggressive period quickly turned to desperation for the Badgers. As the clock went lower and lower, so did the quality of their shots. Wisconsin was hardly able to get into an offensive set in the final period because they kept trying to force shots on every opportunity they had, instead of working the puck around to find the best look.
With just under three and a half minutes remaining in the game, Johnson called a timeout and took his goaltender out of the game, leaving an empty net. It created some quality shot opportunities, but the Badgers could not connect on any of them, while nearly allowing goals scored on them on three separate occasions.
All-in-all, it was a hard fought game by both teams.
“They left everything on the ice,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t due to a lack of effort or commitment. It’s disappointing but again, I’m very proud of my team and the way they conducted themselves.”
The bright spot for Wisconsin was the continued growth of Pankowski. Down the stretch, she proved herself as one of the nation’s best scorers, and her future is bright with the Badgers.
“I think in the locker room, you could see ... that this was not enough for everyone,” Pankowski said. “It’s going to be that bitter taste that’s in our mouth that’s going to drive us next year.”
Pankowksi and company will try next year to get the Badgers to their third-consecutive Frozen Four. With the loss of his seniors, Mark Johnson will be relying on a new four, Pankowski, Clark, Baylee Wellhausen, and Maddie Rolfes, his rising sophomores, to try to make next year’s final rounds a little less frozen for Wisconsin.
