Kyle McClellan turns away Minnesota, No. 4 Wisconsin men's hockey wins shootout

MADISON –  Kyle McClellan saved the day for Wisconsin men’s hockey team again.

On a night when the fourth-ranked Badgers allowed almost twice as many shots and spent most of overtime on their heels, the team managed a shootout victory over the ninth-ranked Minnesota on Saturday night at the Kohl Center thanks, first and foremost, to McClellan’s work between the pipes.

The senior made 42 saves. That included three in overtime. He also turned away both of the Gophers’ shots during the shootout.

On the other end of the ice, freshmen Quinn Finley and William Whitelaw scored in the shootout to give UW a 2-0 win in that portion of the game.

It was the perfect birthday present for UW coach Mike Hastings, who turned 58 on Saturday. It also made the sellout crowd of 15,359 celebrate a “win” even though the result officially counts as a tie on the Badgers’ record.

The crowd was the first sellout for Wisconsin since Feb. 9, 2019, and the largest crowd to see a men’s hockey game this season.

“I know there were multiple times tonight they might have been sitting on their seat thinking it was going to go the other direction, but they hung with us,” said Hastings, whose team is 20-6-2 overall and 11-4-1 in the Big Ten.

“This place, because they’re in it, makes it special. It’s a beautiful building. It’s an awful lot of seats in it, but it’s a different place when it’s full and for anybody to think they didn’t have an impact on tonight’s game or this weekend is crazy.”

Sophomore Jack Horbach’s goal off passes from senior Owen Lindmark and sophomore Ben Dexheimer was Wisconsin’s only goal of the night. It came at the 5-minute 54-second mark of the first period.

Despite the early lead Wisconsin was outshot, 15-9, in the first period, 43-23, for the night.

The Badgers also survived two video reviews that denied the Gophers’ scores.

The first was waved off with 6:10 left in the second period due to goaltender interference. Minnesota shook off that call by tying the game on a Jaxon Nelson goal at the 14:33 mark of the period.

The second came with 2:40 left in the third period, but that score was immediately waved off due to goalie interference. The point of contention in that sequence was if McClellan had enough time to reset after a Gopher slid into him.

It was the only bit of controversy in another strong outing for the nation’s leader in shutouts.

“We just kind of did it as a team effort, keeping the guys to the outside,” he said. “That made it easy. .. I think they did a good job of letting me see the puck, not let a lot of rebounds sit there and get whacked at, so I think that kind of made it easy on me for throughout the night.”

The Gophers (16-7-5, 9-5-4) controlled the overtime, but after they failed to put away the game the stage was set for two of the Badgers’ freshmen to help salvage the night.

As was the case in the shootout win over Lindenwood Jan. 13, Finley took the first shot. Cruz Lucius was second in line that night, but he missed his second straight game Saturday due to injury. That opened the door for Whitelaw.

“He stared a hole through the back of my head on the bench the whole time throughout the shootout…,” Hastings said. “Whitey was looking at me like ‘Hey, let’s go.’”

Around that same time associate head coach Todd Knott reminded Hastings that Whitelaw had a good record in the USHL in shootouts.

“That’s my associate head coach knowing what somebody brings to the table before they get here, so I want to give him credit, but I want to give Whitey even more credit,” Hastings said.

The outcome gave Wisconsin two points for the Big Ten standings. Meanwhile, Michigan State’s split with Notre Dame left the second-place Badgers five points out of the lead.

Up next is Notre Dame on Friday and Saturday at the Kohl Center.

“Just over the years you try to find ways to believe,” Hastings said. “You ask the guys to and tonight might not have been a Mona Lisa, but if you’ve all golfed enough, the scorecard tells the story and it don’t paint pictures. Tonight was that way. We just kind of found a way.”