Box Score ST. PAUL, Minn. - No. 3 Wisconsin scored three first period goals and beat No. 1 Denver in the third place game of the WCHA Final Five this afternoon at Xcel Energy Center. Wisconsin improves to 25-10-4 with the win, while Denver drops consecutive games for the first time this season and falls to 27-9-4.
Denver is second in the latest PairWise Rankings and learns its NCAA tournament fate when the 16-team field is announced Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. MT on ESPN2/ESPN2 HD. The Pioneers are expected to be the No. 1 or No. 2 overall seed.
Wisconsin grabbed a quick 3-0 first period lead on goals from Ben Street, Derek Stepan and Blake Geoffrion. Street tapped in a rebound, Stepan beat Marc Cheverie (8 saves) high to the glove side and Geoffrion's power-play goal at 11:08 ended the game for Cheverie.
Rhett Rakhshani (Huntington Beach, Calif.) netted a breakaway goal from Joe Colborne (Calgary, Alberta) on the power play 25 seconds into the middle stanza, but Geoffrion converted a 3-on-1 odd-man rush at 8:54 and Sean Dolan gave the Badgers a commanding 5-1 lead at 11:30.
Jesse Martin (Edmonton, Alberta) scored on the power play from Drew Shore (Denver) and Matt Donovan (Edmond, Okla.) at 4:40 of the third and Nate Dewhurst's (Johnston, Iowa) first career goal from Brian Gifford (Moorhead, Minn.) and Shore came at 6:22. Michael Davies made the final score 6-3 with a late third period goal.
Wisconsin won the shot battle, 48-36, and went 1-for-2 on the power play. DU was 2-for-6 with the man-advantage. Adam Murray (Anchorage, Alaska) stopped 34 of shots in his first action since Feb. 5. Scott Gudmandson got the win with 33 stops.
Notes: Denver left wing Anthony Maiani (Shelby Township, Mich.) missed the game after suffering an upper body injury in last night's game. Martin has 4-3=7 during his five-game point streak. DU is 0-2-1 against Wisconsin this season and 1-9 against the Badgers in the WCHA playoffs. The WCHA regular-season champion has gone 0-2 at the Final Five the last three seasons. The four NCAA regional sites are St. Paul, Minn., Albany, N.Y. Worcester, Mass., and Fort Wayne, Ind. The 2010 Frozen Four will be held at Ford Field in Detroit, Mich., on April 8 & 10.
