The top-ranked Gophers men's hockey team got off to a hot start in its Big Ten Conference opener Thursday night.
It didn't last.
Mathieu De St. Phalle had two goals and an assist, Cruz Lucius also scored twice and 14th-ranked Wisconsin beat the Gophers 5-2 at 3M Arena at Mariucci.
"That was as bad as we could play from start to finish," Gophers coach Bob Motzko said.
Captain Jaxon Nelson scored only 15 seconds in for the Gophers (3-2), after he tipped in a Ryan Chesley shot from the point. The other assist went to Mason Nevers in his season debut. The senior from Edina missed the Gophers' first four games after getting hit during an Oct. 8 exhibition by Bemidji State's Liam Engström, who was given a five-minute major.
"It seemed like we kind of were trying to play summer hockey, trying to score every shift. When you get a positive result like that right off the get-go, you kind of think it will be a little easier, and you're going to get a lot more goals." Nevers said. "... The way we scored right there was just a retrieval down low, and hard work, and getting to the net. That kind of wasn't the recipe that we had for the whole night."
Only 83 seconds after Nelson's goal, De St. Phalle tied it on the power play, with Carl Fish in the penalty box for hooking. Lucius, a sophomore from Grant whose brother Chaz played for the Gophers, put the Badgers ahead with a shot from inside the blue line at 10:14 of the first.
The Gophers tied the score at 2-2 midway through the second period on the first career goal by Charlie Strobel, but Carson Bantle and De St. Phalle scored 62 seconds apart later in the period and Wisconsin (6-1) stayed in control from there.
"We scored the first shift, then we went easy mode," Motzko said. "We turned the puck over, we tried to score on the rush, we didn't get pucks deep, we established no forecheck. The most their defensemen broke a sweat was in warmups."
Lucius, who had committed to play for the Gophers in 2017 when he was 13 years old before switching to Wisconsin last year, then punctuated the victory with his second goal of the game. That came after Strobel — whose father and uncle played for the Badgers — received a game misconduct for a hit to the head of Wisconsin's Quinn Finley in front of the Gophers net.
Ben Dexheimer had three assists and Joe Palodichuk two for Wisconsin, which has gotten off to a hot start under new coach Mike Hastings. He replaced the fired Tony Granato after leading Minnesota State Mankato to two Frozen Fours and eight NCAA tournaments in 11 seasons. Kyle McClellan made 22 saves as Wisconsin improved to 3-2 in its past five games against the Gophers when Minnesota was ranked No. 1.
Justen Close made 29 saves for the Gophers. The teams complete the series Friday night.
"Zero positives tonight. I hate saying that after a loss, you know?" Motzko said. "When we made it 2-2 … we had a few minutes where we felt better. But then we broke down and made mistakes and then got behind in the game."
