GREEN BAY, Wis. – The No. 5/6 Wisconsin men's hockey team cut a two-goal deficit late in the third period to force overtime with Northern Michigan, but the comeback was during extra time as the Badgers fell, 5-4, at the Resch Center on Friday night.

Trailing 4-2 to start the third period, the Badgers (4-2-0, 1-1-0-0 Big Ten) held Northern Michigan (4-1-0, 2-0-0 WCHA) to four shots on goal in the frame while scoring goals from senior Jason Ford and sophomore Trent Frederic to force the first overtime of the season.

NMU's Denver Pierce scored with just 17.1 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Wildcats the victory.

NMU struck first blood, but Frederic evened the game up at one apiece minutes later with his third goal of the season. Junior defenseman Peter Tischke passed the puck around a sprawled defender to Frederic, who put it underneath the pads of Atte Tolvanen.

NMU seized a 2-1 lead it would take into intermission after Wisconsin took back-to-back holding penalties, then widened the gap early in the second frame with a 5-on-3, short-handed tally from Denver Pierce, making the game 3-1.

Junior Seamus Malone tallied a power-play goal for the Badgers at the 5:59 mark of the second period, slipping a slapshot from the left circle past Tolvanen, but the Wildcats regained the 4-2 lead with a goal on their own two-man advantage.

Notes to Know
-NMU outshot Wisconsin 25-23
-It was the first overtime of the season for both programs.
-The teams combined for 13 penalties, nine coming in the second period alone. Wisconsin was 1-for-6 (.167) on power plays while NMU was 2-for-7 (.286)
-Kyle Hayton made 20 saves for Wisconsin in the loss
 
Straight from the Rink
Head Coach Tony Granato
On the comeback falling short:
"We were pretty sloppy tonight. Special teams were kind of an indicator of how the game was played for us tonight, and we weren't very smart. I give them credit, we watched them play three games and they look good and they play hard.

"We're the hunted now. Every team that plays us now is in a position where they see the respect we're getting nationally and they're coming after us. They did tonight and we didn't respond in the right way until it was too late. They controlled the game tonight."

On NMU's short-handed goal:
"We talk about being smart. They jumped on an opportunity, we were flat-footed in the offensive zone. I think we were frustrated that we couldn't generate more opportunities on the offensive side of things and we got a little bit lazy and they took advantage of it. That's a big goal, that's a killer. We came back and scored after that, but you come out of a 5-on-3 even, that's not good.

"We lost special teams tonight, it was a big part of it. But that's carry over from being smart and again, I think they played a better game than we did all over the ice. When you do that, you make the most of your chances on the power play and that's a good power play, those guys shoot the puck well. They were the better team tonight."

On the second period penalties:
"There wasn't [a flow], we were down some guys that are on the special teams. But they were still able to make plays with their guys. We've got to be better on our special teams."
 
Cameron Hughes
"It great to come back like that, but at the end of the day I don't think we did enough good things. We can use it, to learn from it, but if you leave yourself in that position where it's up to chance in overtime, you're not in a good spot. We didn't get the result, we'll learn from it and move on."

On the NMU short-handed goal:
"We kind of bobbled the puck and maybe weren't expecting them to jump like that and they did. It's never good to give up that goal. We've got to be better than that."

On being a hunted team:
"They're going to come hard regardless, any college game and any college team is going to come hard. With our ranking, maybe they come a little harder, but we've got to be ready for that if we want to be a top-10 team or a top-five team. That's what we want to do so we've got to be ready for everyone's best effort."
 
Trent Frederic
On what the team did in the third to force overtime:
"How we played in the third is how we have to play every period. We stepped it up a notch, we kind of knew what we had to do."

On the short-handed goal:
"If you look at the game, they scored on our 5-on-3 and they scored on their 5-on-3. That's two goals right there, that's a huge difference in this game. For sure."

On using this game for tomorrow:
"We've got to win, I think everyone knows that. We've got to start playing like we're a team ranked No. 5. Every team is going to start playing harder against us every night, so we've got to bring it.

"It's new and I think that's what we have to put in our head every game, that every team is going to play their best against us. We're going to have to bring it every night. Nights that we don't bring it stuff like this is going to happen."
 
Up Next:
Wisconsin will meet up with the Wildcats for the series finale on Saturday. Game time is set for 5 p.m. CT at the Resch Center.