ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Wisconsin men's hockey team started strong and stayed right with No. 12 Michigan Friday night, but it was the finish that cost Wisconsin in a 6-4 loss at Yost Ice Arena.
 
The Badgers (3-6-4, 0-1-0-0 Big Ten) scored the first three goals, but Michigan, the preseason favorite to win the conference, scored six of the last seven goals to edge UW in the Big Ten opener for both teams.
 
"You leave the front door open and that team will take advantage of it, and that's what happened," Wisconsin head coach Mike Eaves said.
 
Wisconsin looked to be in firm control of the game when Will Johnson finished off a textbook two-on-one rush with 6:21 gone in the second period to put UW up 3-0. After Ryan Wagner rushed into the zone on the left wing, he fed Johnson at the right side of the net, and Johnson slapped the feed past Wolverines' goaltender Zach Nagelvoort for his second goal of the season.
 
But Michigan (8-2-2, 1-0-0-0) took the momentum away from the Badgers almost immediately, responding just 26 seconds later to trim the UW lead to two.
 
The momentum began to shift toward Michigan a little more than a minute later. Brendan Warren was awarded a penalty shot at the 8:03 mark, and although he missed, he would poke home a rebound just 28 seconds after that to make it a 3-2 game.
 
"Well that's the third time it's happened to us this year," Eaves said of letting a team back into a game after having a multiple-goal lead. "We called a timeout after the second goal just to kind of, 'Hey guys, we've been here before.' That kind of settled us down a little bit. It's a hump we have to get over."
 
Wisconsin responded to Michigan's push just a short while after Eaves called the timeout. Sophomore Matt Ustaski answered the moment with his first goal of the season, as he tipped Jarod Zirbel's shot from the slot past Nagelvoort following a Michigan turnover in its own zone.
 
But Michigan took over from there, scoring the final four goals of the game, including an empty netter with less than a second left in the game. Michigan cut the lead back to one when JT Compher found a bouncing puck in the left circle and beat UW goaltender Matt Jurusik blocker side with 6:17 left in the second period. Justin Selman then netted the equalizer at 16:37 of the second when he redirected Cutler Martin's shot past Jurusik.
 
Neither team scored during the rest of the second period, but Michigan tallied the game-winner just 3:22 into the third period when Tyler Motte snuck a snap shot past Jurusik's glove.
 
Wisconsin continued to stick right with the Wolverines even after they took the lead, with UW holding a 10-7 shots-on-goal edge in the final 20 minutes. The Badgers eventually pulled Jurusik for an extra attacker with less than a minute left, but couldn't tie the game.
 
"The third period, we outshot them, we had some good chances to tie it up," Eaves said. "We certainly didn't quit and we had some good opportunities."
 
Freshman Luke Kunin, who turned 18 on Friday, scored the first goal of the game for Wisconsin. His power-play tally at 6:28 of the first was his team-leading fifth goal of the year and team-leading third power-play marker.  

Tim Davison scored his fourth goal in his last nine games to give UW a 2-0 lead early in the second period. Before Davison's first goal in his recent hot stretch, he had gone 28 games without scoring, dating back to last season.
 
"Well we made the analogy at the end of the game, we study all week in practice to take a test at the end of the week. And this test today, we did a lot of good things, but we didn't do enough good things to get a passing grade," Eaves said. 

The Badgers will look to split the series with Michigan tomorrow night, with faceoff set for 6:30 p.m.