Before it, he was on his game, making quick reflex stops as well as positional saves. He turned away all 16 New Hampshire shots in the first period, some on a pair of 5-on-3 power plays.

The mojo vanished in the second, when the Wildcats scored three times on just seven shots on goal and Gudmandson committed the ultimate puck-playing error for a goaltender.

The second-period lapse led to a 5-1 New Hampshire victory Saturday, one that came thanks to a big emotional swing and with a notable special teams subplot.

Late in the second, Gudmandson ventured into the right corner to fetch a puck that the Wildcats sent into the zone. He successfully pushed it away from one UNH player but right onto the stick of a second, Superior native Mike Sislo, who buried it into an empty net.

That doubled the Wildcats' advantage to 3-1, and suddenly a close game started to look out of reach in front of a sellout crowd of 6,501 at the Whittemore Center.

"I didn't see the guy coming in, and I should have thrown it behind the net," Gudmandson said. "It's an awful feeling."

"You can do that a thousand times in practice, that drill," UW coach Mike Eaves said. "Until you do it under a gun and in a building like this, you've got to learn to do these things under fire. In the long run, it'll help him. That's one of the reasons why we wanted to play him here."

Earlier, New Hampshire (1-0) erased Wisconsin's lead and built one of its own within 39 seconds in the second period. It kept building from there, sending the Badgers to an 0-2 record for the first time in 10 years and the ninth time in the program's 46-season modern era.

The Badgers went 0-for-10 on the power play Saturday after going 0-for-6 in a 5-4 loss to Boston College a night earlier.

Things swung for Gudmandson, ironically, when the Badgers had control of the play early in the second. Before, he said he felt like he was in control of everything on the ice.

"I knew where everybody was every second, and I was just seeing the puck big," Gudmandson said.

And after? "We came out hard there in the second period, and they didn't have as many chances," he said. "I've got to make sure that I stay mentally focused there when they're not getting many chances on me."

The Wildcats took advantage when Gudmandson was slow in getting back to the net after a wide power-play shot by Kevin Kapstad. The puck bounced off the glass behind the net and directly to James van Riemsdyk, who slid it into an empty net to tie the game at 1-1.

On the next shift, Steve Moses made a nice cut behind the Wisconsin net and fed Paul Thompson out front for a one-timer putaway and a UNH advantage.

"Whenever you get a goal in a game, everyone gets a little more fired up," said UNH goaltender Brian Foster, who made 30 saves. "Once we got two, you could tell everyone was running around a little faster. Everyone was excited and ready to go."