Wisconsin stays unbeaten with tie plus shootout win at Minnesota

Top-ranked Wisconsin gave Minnesota senior goaltender Luca Di Pasquo all he could handle for 65 minutes only to take a tie out of the first matchup of the season for the border rivals Nov. 5 at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis.

For the purpose of records, the game goes down as a 1-1 tie. But after regulation and five minutes of three-on-three overtime, the Badgers’ Bruno Idžan found the net in a shootout to give the Badgers an extra point in the Big Ten standings.

The game was a stark change for UW (6-0-1, 2-0-1 Big Ten) after a weekend in which it swept Notre Dame by scores of 7-1 and 9-1. Minnesota, ranked 18th, went to 3-3-3 (1-0-2 Big Ten) with its third tie in nine games under first-year coach Brett Larson.

The game was the first among three unconventional Thursday-Saturday sets the Badgers will play in the regular season. The completion scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 7 with streaming coverage on B1G+.

UW pushed Di Pasquo to the limit

Di Pasquo made 41 saves, including 16 in the second period, and four in overtime.

Idžan, a sophomore from Croatia and the Badgers’ leading goal scorer, slipped a backhander around Di Pasquo on the first attempt in the shootout. On the subsequent tries, Gavin Morrissey lost the puck and Dylan Compton was denied by Di Pasquo.

Wisconsin sophomore Alexis Cournoyer made 16 saves to earn his fourth win since transferring from Cornell. UW held the Golden Gophers to seven shots on goal after the first period.

Wisconsin actually trailed

The Badgers fell behind in a game for the first time this season when Mason Moe scored on the power play 10:19 into the opening period, resulting in the Badgers playing from behind for nearly 17 minutes.

Grady Deering was in the box for the Badgers, serving a five-minute major for an illegal check to the back, a penalty that also resulted in the third-line center missing the rest of the game.

Minnesota-born freshman Zach Wooten, playing on the top line with Morrissey and JJ Wiebusch, tied the game for UW with a shot from the slot 6:52 into the second period after taking a pass from Wiebusch behind the net. Wooten has scored points in five straight games with three goals and three assists.

An honor for a Badger

Earlier in the day, the U.S. Collegiate Selects announced that UW junior defenseman Logan Hensler, a 2025 Ottawa Senators first-round draft pick, will be a part of the team for the 2026 Spengler Cup in December in Switzerland.

That means for the second straight year one of the Badgers’ top players will miss the Kwik Trip Holiday Face-off at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, following Quinn Finley.

The six-team Spengler Cup is the world’s oldest invitational hockey tournament, having started in 1923.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin stays unbeaten with tie plus shootout win at Minnesota