HOUGHTON, Mich. — Luck is a very strange bird, and no one could speak to that Friday night more so than Kyle Turris.

The freshman center could easily have had his first career hat trick for the University of Wisconsin men's hockey team, which would have provided a critical win on the road.

The conversion he wound up getting was huge, coming midway through the third period and providing UW with a 1-1 overtime standoff with Michigan Tech before a Winter Carnival crowd of 3,883 at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena.

But earlier in that vital shift, Turris made a blunder that could easily have sealed a Western Collegiate Hockey Association loss for the 11th-ranked Badgers.

"It's kind of the way the game goes," he said.

The comeback continued a remarkable trend for UW, which is now 2-7-5 in games in which it trails going into the third period this season.

Look deeper into that statistic and you'll see the Badgers (12-11-6 overall, 8-9-4 with 20 points in the WCHA) have salvaged eight points in those instances. That's in part why they're tied for fourth place with Minnesota State-Mankato heading into the series finale tonight.

Turris, who leads the Badgers in scoring, had a yawning net to shoot at during a power play in the first period, but somehow pushed the puck wide from just below the right hash mark.

He was in roughly the same location and situation in the third, but lifted the puck over the crossbar.

"He feels real bad in there because he knew that he had missed opportunities," UW coach Mike Eaves said, nodding toward the visiting dressing room. "Those are things that would have made a difference this night."

As it was, a signature moment by the penalty killers and the work of junior goaltender Shane Connelly (19 saves) were the difference-makers for the Badgers.

The Huskies (10-12-5, 6-9-4 with 16 points in league play) had the lead — courtesy of a goal by left winger Bennett Royer midway through the second — and had a 5-on-3 power play for the first 1 minute, 22 seconds of the third.

"We've been a pretty good team playing with the lead (in the third)," Tech coach Jamie Russell said, referring to a 7-0 record when leading after two this season. "I thought we had an opportunity with a 5-on-3 to really drive the nail home in the coffin."

But Connelly made two saves in the sequence on a night when neither club showed a whole lot of flair with the man advantage. The Huskies were 0-for-6, while UW failed to convert three relatively brief 5-on-3s — totaling 1:27 — en route to going 0-for-7.

"We needed everyone to step up," Connelly said of the kill to start the third. "It was one of the most important penalty kills we've faced all year. We needed to do a job and it started with me."

The whims of luck were never more apparent than in the third.

After a faceoff in the Tech zone, Turris lost track of his man, which triggered an odd-man rush the other way. Connelly held down the fort by denying Royer from the right circle.

"As they say in basketball, he was watching the paint dry," Eaves said of Turris.

"Got lucky on that one," Turris said.

Moments later, Turris unleashed a wrister from the high slot that whizzed through traffic and past goaltender Michael-Lee Teslak (22 saves).

"The gray hair that was popping out went back in," Eaves said.

"It's funny how it works," Turris said after his 11th goal of the season. "The first chance I had, there was nobody between me and the net. The one I scored on, it seemed like the whole team was in front of the net and the somehow the puck had eyes and found its way through."

Even more luck: Connelly tried, but failed, to catch that 2-on-1 slapper by Royer.

"I look back on it as one of those fortunate bounces," Connelly said. "I made the save and wasn't able to catch it and we go down and score."

Connelly saw it as a tradeoff for Turris' first miss and two shots — one by senior defenseman and captain Davis Drewiske and the other by sophomore defenseman Jamie McBain — that hit the post.

"We got paid back by the hockey gods a little bit by me not catching that puck," Connelly said.