April 6, 2006

MILWAUKEE, WIS. - Goaltender Brian Elliott had his shutout string snapped Thursday night, but when the pressure was greatest, he got a mini-shutout in the second period, which proved to be a springboard to Wisconsin's 5-2 victory over Maine in the second semifinal of the NCAA Men's Frozen Four hockey tournament. The victory gives Wisconsin a unique opportunity to win the national championship and duplicate the NCAA Women's title that the Badgers already have in hand.

"When the women won the title, Mark Johnson said the ultimate winner was women's hockey," said Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves, a former star and co-conspirator with Johnson on a Badger NCAA championship team in 1977. "I think we could say that when we play Boston College Saturday night, the ultimate winner will be men's hockey, because it will be two tremendous teams playing and it should be a great game."

The Badgers (29-10-3) will face Boston College, which outlasted North Dakota 6-5 in Thursday's first semifinal. After the first game drew 17,637 to Bradley Center, the night game drew 17,691, and it was a raucous, Badger-backing gang that made the hour-long trek east from Madison to cheer for the Badgers from the time they hit the ice.

Wisconsin got two goals and an assist from Robbie Earl, a goal and an assist each from Ross Carlson and Adam Burish, and possibly the key goal of the game from Bob Street to pull away from a 3-2 nail-biter.

"The Ben Street goal was huge," said Eaves. "The game was like a three-act play. They played well at first and then we came on in the first period, then in the second and third periods, our big players came up big - Elliott, Robbie Earl, Ross Carlson, Burish..."

Burish was first to take the spotlight, scoring midway through the first period. Burish had special reason to realize that a Badger title is almost mandatory to his family, because his sister, Nikki Burish, was a star on the Badger women's team. "My sister said, `If you don't win this thing, I'll be one-up on you for the rest of your life,' " Burish said. "Now we have one more left to win a championship. That's what we came here to do."

Maine, however, tied it at 17:37 when Keith Johnson shot from the slot. Elliott went down to block it, and as Maine's Keith Johnson loomed over him looking for a rebound, it was unnecessary, because the puck had found its way in already. The goal ended an amazing streak, where Elliott had shut out Minnesota 4-0 in the third-place game of the WCHA Final Five, then blanked Bemidji State 4-0 in the first game of the Midwest Regional, and shut out Cornell 1-0 in three overtimes - almost two full games. Elliott, in fact, had gotten his game together after recovering from an injury to run up an 8-1 string right now, in which he has given up only eight goals in the nine games, with five shutouts.

The goal didn't seem to bother Elliott - not based on his second period. Maine outshot Wisconsin 19-13 in the middle session, but the only goals came when Carlson and Earl connected. Carlson got the puck on the penalty kill and sped up the left side. With one defenseman retreating to cover, Johnson did a little hop-step to the slot, and drilled his shot past Maine's freshman goaltender Ben Bishop at 4:18, to break the 1-1 tie. The 2-1 lead was hardly substantial, but with Elliott in goal, it was a good building block. Four minutes later, Earl carried ujp the right side and scored again, and it was 3-1.

Elliott credited his teammates for blocking a lot of shots. His teammates don't need to compliment Elliott - it goes without saying. "People talk about how Dominik Hasek plays so well in practice as well as games," said Eaves. "That's Brian, too. In practice, he doesn't want to let any in."

Perhaps an even more impressive factor for the junior goalie who leads the nation in goals-against average (1.55) and save percentage (.938), and now has a 26-5-3 record for the season, is that when a rare goal does get by him, he remains unruffled, and rarely gives up another in close order.

At 11:19 of the third period, the Black Bears executed an impressive rush. Josh Soares carried in on the right side and left a behind-the-back pass for Greg Moore, who passed across the slot to Mike Lundin, and the junior defenseman stepped into his shot and scored, high right.

That cut Wisconsin's lead to 3-2, but 57 seconds later, Street, a freshman center from British Columbia, carried up the right side and shot from the circle. Bishop blocked it, but after a teammate overskated the rebound, Street got to it. Then he whiffed on one shot, but chipped a follow-up backhand in. That one punctured Maine's attempt at generating momentum.

Earl's second goal was an empty-netter, but it couldn't have been prettier to the big crowd. With Bishop pulled for an extra attacker, Josh Engel flipped the puck ahead. Earl chased after it, and got to it barely in time to convert a wide-angle shot from the left side with 1:44 remaining.

For the game, Wisconsin outshot Maine 39-34.

"Now we've got a chance to win the last game of the year," said Eaves. "That's something we've talked about since the first game of the year."

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