MADISON ― Both Minnesota’s and Michigan’s sweaters have a big letter “M” stitched to the front, one a maize block "M" and the other gold with slanted legs.

But entering Friday's matchup, that’s all the two teams had in common.

The Gophers entered the game as the top-ranked team in the country, while the Wolverines were swept in a disappointing series against No. 6 Miami (Ohio) the previous weekend.

Minnesota had just one loss coming into the weekend, in its previous game to Denver, while Michigan had lost its last three Friday games.

But for 60 minutes Friday night, it looked like the two teams swapped jerseys.

No. 14 Michigan (9-7-0 overall, 5-5-0 CCHA) dominated No. 1 Minnesota 6-3 in its first game of the College Hockey Showcase. The Wolverines lost the second game 3-0 to Wisconsin on Saturday.

But Friday, Michigan attacked early, amassing four even-strength goals before the Gophers (7-2-5) pulled their starting goaltender, Alex Kangas, with 16 minutes to go in the second period.

"We don't want to overreact to it," Michigan coach Red Berenson said through the athletic department. "But it's a good solid win over a really good, solid team. Now whether it was a fluke we'll find out in future games."

Senior forward Brandon Naurato, an unlikely source of offense who had just one goal coming into the game, opened up the scoring, firing a one-timer past Kangas' stick side off a pass from sophomore forward Ben Winnett.

Sophomore forward Carl Hagelin continued the onslaught, tallying his third and fourth goals of the season. Freshman forward David Wohlberg added another to give Michigan an insurmountable 4-0 lead in the second period.

Though Minnesota closed the gap, the game wasn’t as close as the score indicates.

Michigan was unable to carry over the momentum from beating the Gophers into its game the next night against Wisconsin, which would determine the unofficial College Hockey Showcase Champion.

Before the weekend series, Berenson decided to switch games for senior goaltender Sauer and sophomore Bryan Hogan, playing Hogan on Friday and Sauer on Saturday, in hopes of igniting a Michigan offense that had struggled to give its senior netminder goal support.

“We’ve played Sauer all year on Friday night and we haven’t scored,” Berenson said. “So this week we flip-flopped and we scored on Friday and not on Saturday. I thought it was just one of those things. You can see Billy Sauer is a good goalie. He gave us every chance to win, and we didn’t score for him.”

The loss to Wisconsin (7-7-2) was the third time the Wolverines have been shut out this year. Michigan hasn't been shut out three times since the 2000-2001 campaign.

Wisconsin is one of the hottest teams in the nation and is 7-1-1 in its last nine games.

Sauer played well enough for the Wolverines to win, but instead of Michigan killing off penalties, penalties killed the Wolverines.

Wisconsin had five straight power-play chances in the second period, and was on the man advantage nine times total, compared to three for the Wolverines.

Two power-play goals in the third period were the difference in the game.

Freshman defensemen Greg Pateryn’s hooking penalty set up Wisconsin’s game-winner, and junior forward Brian Lebler's five-minute major enabled the Badgers to seal the game.

“We can kill a few penalties, but we can’t kill nine,” Berenson said. “I don’t know how much that added up to with the five-minute penalty, but it’s too much. We came on this trip to be a disciplined team.”

The Wolverines reverted to earlier tendencies against Wisconsin ― making careless passes, giving up costly turnovers in the defensive zone and taking too many penalties.

Michigan’s objective this weekend was to gain confidence and find consistency. Berenson hoped the Sauer-Hogan switch would help. But after a dominating Friday win and disappointing Saturday loss, the team is still looking for answers.

“We’ve had a couple of bad Fridays," Hagelin said. "But obviously this Friday was good so there’s nothing wrong with us on Fridays. We just need to stay out of the box and play hard.”