MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin dropped the opening matchup of a two-game border-battle series versus the Minnesota Golden Gophers, 6-2, Friday night at the Kohl Center. 

Juniors Tarek Baker and Ty Pelton-Byce put up the two goals for Wisconsin, giving UW a 2-1 lead through the first seven minutes of the second period.

Captian Wyatt Kalynuk helped set up both the goals, with Linus Weissbach and Sean Dhooghe dishing out one assist each. 

The third game between these two teams this season started out tight, ending the first period tied at one and sitting tied at two for most of the second period. Wisconsin out-shot the Gophers 31-27 throughout the game.

Minnesota broke open the game with two goals in the back half of the second period along with two more goals in the third.

Jack Berry and Daniel Lebedeff combined for 21 saves on the night with Lebedeff starting the game and Berry entering in relief after the fourth Minnesota tally.

 

Cheli with the Celly in the first-ever #Legends Race!!

🥇 Chris Chelios
🥈 @jpav8
🥉 Mark Johnson pic.twitter.com/Hl1vsmYHFe

— Wisconsin Hockey (@BadgerMHockey) February 1, 2020

Notes to know:

• Wyatt Kalynuk recorded his third multi-point game in a row with two assists Friday night.
• Ty Pelton-Byce owns goals in three of the last four games and has seven on the season.

Straight from the rink:
Head Coach Tony Granato:
"I think the opportunity was different for us. I think the last three weeks we've played much better. I thought last week, even though we split, there was lots of good vibes after that on how we played and I thought that would carry over a little bit more into tonight."

Junior Forward Tarek Baker:
"It's silly mistakes that we keep making that keep biting us. At the end of the day, until we figure out how to play consistently for 60 minutes and get guys to stay on the team's page instead of their own... we might be getting these same results. Until we get a full buy in from 27 guys nothing is going to change. Tomorrow for us, leadership group and guys like Roman, we're going to go out there and show the team the style of play we need to play to win and we're just going to go out there and compete tomorrow."

Sophomore Forward Roman Ahcan:
"We need to learn to play the right way and the game's really fun when we play it the way it's supposed to be played. When you get away from that, things get harder and harder and then we start to chase ourselves."

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Great having Olympians and Madison-born Matt and Becca Hamilton curl out the first puck tonight🥌🥇

A post shared by Wisconsin Men's Hockey (@badgermhockey) on Jan 31, 2020 at 5:33pm PST

Up Next: The Badgers face Minnesota again tomorrow night in the Kohl Center at 8 p.m. (Tickets). A broadcast will be available on FOX Sports Wisconsin and 1310 WIBA radio.