Gophers overcome Wisconsin in overtime, win their eighth men’s hockey game in a row

Freshman Brodie Ziemer’s overtime goal rallied the Gophers men’s hockey team to a 3-2 victory over Wisconsin on Saturday in Madison, Wis.

Ziemer’s goal, his third goal of the season, at 3 minutes, 21 seconds of the extra session gave the Gophers (9-1, 4-0 Big Ten) their eighth consecutive victory.

The Gophers, who trailed 2-1 going into the third period, tied the score with 6:04 left in the third period on Connor Kurth’s power-play goal. The goal was Kurth’s team-leading seventh of the season.

After a scoreless first period, Brody Lamb’s power-play goal gave the Gophers a 1-0 lead with 12½ minutes remaining in the second period.

The Badgers (2-8, 1-5) scored twice in the final five minutes of the second period to take a 2-1 lead. Ryland Mosely’s goal tied the score with 4:12 left in the period before Quinn Finley scored with 32 seconds remaining in the period.

Gophers goalie Liam Souliere made 31 saves as the Gophers outshot the Badgers 42-33.

The victory was the second come-from-behind victory in 24 hours for the Gophers. On Friday, they trailed 2-1 in the second period before rallying behind the tying and game-winning goals from Jimmy Snuggerud. Snuggerud had two assists Saturday.

“Most important tonight, it was how we responded,” Gophers coach Bob Motzko said. “I thought it was just a great effort by our guys from start to finish. That’s a gutsy effort; we needed to rebound from what we did yesterday, and we came up with a big power-play goal to tie it. I thought we played well enough to win this hockey game, but it took until the last minutes of overtime and a backhand saucer pass and a guy gets it out of midair. A great goal for us and something we can continue to build on.”

Next up for the Gophers are two nonconference games with Bemidji State, Thursday in Minneapolis and Saturday in Bemidji. The Gophers return to Big Ten play on Nov. 22-23 at Notre Dame.