DENVER — No one would blame Matthew Ford if he thought he was the focus of some vast conspiracy.

Last week, Ford played the two best games of his senior season for the University of Wisconsin men's hockey team, but came away with nothing to show for it.

This time around, Ford had something tangible to celebrate, only to have it snatched away in the cruelest of ways.

The 17th-ranked Badgers endured a stinging 3-2 Western Collegiate Hockey Association loss to Denver before a crowd of 6,114 Friday night at Magness Arena.

The decision meant UW ran its winless ways on the road to seven games overall (0-5-2) and its WCHA winless streak to five games (0-4-1) heading into the series finale tonight.

Eighth-place UW (8-10-3 overall, 4-8-1 WCHA) fought gamely back from a three-goal deficit — including a second-period conversion by sophomore center Aaron Bendickson that ended an 0-for-16 stretch on the power play — but literally ran out of time.

Ford, a senior right winger, appeared to score the tying goal in the final second of regulation.

With junior goaltender Shane Connelly off for an extra attacker, UW freshman center Kyle Turris won the faceoff in the right circle with 3.7 seconds left. Ford pulled the puck out of a tangle of bodies and cut loose with a low screamer that disappeared between the pads of Pioneers goaltender Peter Mannino and into the net.

"Fordo did a good job of coming in and getting it and (throwing) at the net right along the ice," Turris said.

"I just wanted to get it on net," Ford said. "I knew there wasn't much time."

Buoyed by the fact the red goal light was illuminated behind Mannino — if time has run out, the light should not come on — Ford thought a 5-minute overtime was coming.

"That was a big high for me," Ford said. "They did really well winning the faceoff back and getting the shot off and getting it in," Mannino said. "They did it perfect."

But referee Randy Schmidt looked at the sequence on video replay and determined that the puck had not crossed the goal line before time expired.

Ford played exceptionally well in back-to-back losses to Colorado College Jan. 4 and 5 in Madison.

If that reality hurt, this one left him in anguish.

"A lot of emotions went from high to low in a very short amount of time," he said.

UW coach Mike Eaves was upset that, on two occasions late in the third period, the clock had to be adjusted because time was allowed to run off after the whistle blew.

"I'm getting different reports from different people saying on another clock there was 0.2 seconds (when the puck went in)," he said, referring to a series of text messages from friends in Madison. "I'd like to know which clock they're looking at.

"And why is it that twice in a game their people can't hear the whistle to stop the clock when it should be stopped? They have a real issue here in this building."

Eaves said he got a "blank look" from Schmidt when he asked the referee about the red light being on behind Mannino.

The second-place Pioneers (17-4, 12-3) landed the first punch at 7:20 of the first.

Right winger Tom May angled left to right through the UW zone, zoomed around defenseman Ryan McDonagh in the right circle — McDonagh was at the end of a shift and was heading to the bench when the sequence sprang to life — then launched a wrister that beat Connelly near side.

The Badgers absorbed another blow a few minutes later.

Denver center Kyle Ostrow jumped on a loose puck at the offensive blue line, then zipped a pass to left winger Anthony Maiani all alone in front of Connelly.

Maiani appeared to use his skate to redirect the feed past Connelly at 9:58, but Schmidt elected not to review the sequence on video.

You need some luck to get out of a funk, and the Badgers seem unable to locate any.

That was the case early in the second when a shot from the right circle by senior defenseman and assistant captain Kyle Klubertanz rang off the crossbar.

After the Pioneers scored to bump the lead to three goals — right winger Tyler Ruegsegger finished off an odd-man sequence at 4:28 by tapping home a pass from Ostrow on the power play — UW had another great scoring chance go awry.

A turnover by Denver left Bendickson and left winger Blake Geoffrion motoring 2-on-0 toward Mannino (23 saves).

Bendickson held the puck long enough to force Mannino to commit, but instead of passing to a wide-open Geoffrion on his left, Bendickson lifted a wrister over the net.

Bendickson atoned later in the second and ended the 0-for-16 drought for the Badgers on the power play, a span of six games.

Some good energy by the Badgers at the outset of the third was rewarded at 1:55 when Sean Dolan snapped a wrister past Mannino from the lower edge of the left circle.

"We battled back and did an awful lot of good things in the second half of the game," Eaves said. "We needed to get that point to reward ourselves for the effort."