Brad Navin notched two goals and an assist and goalie Zach Woodman stopped 28 shots as Team Wisconsin defeated the Minnesota Seniors 5-3 Thursday evening in preliminary action at the Plymouth Ice Center in the CCM Minnesota National Invitational tournament.

The pace of play was fast and furious from the beginning, but it was the boys from Wisconsin that got on the scoreboard first.

Alex Dahl skated down the left side and threw a shot thru traffic from the blue line that beat Minnesota goalie Nick Lehr at the 6:55 mark of the first. Navin and Ryan Dau were credited with assists on the play.

Minnesota got even with just under three minutes left, taking advantage of a TW turnover.

Thomas Schutt grabbed a loose puck behind the net and slid it to Timothy Bonner, who roofed it past Woodman's glove just under the bar to make it 1-1. Garrett Skrbich also got a helper.

Early in the second period, Navin put TW ahead for good. He grabbed a pass from Simon Leahy, who was working below the goal line, and beat Lehr to make it 2-1 at the 5:12 mark. Hunter Scott also tallied an assist.

TW took that 2-1 lead into the third and then took advantage of Minnesota's first penalty.

With just 20 seconds left on a Nick Seeler head contact infraction, Garret Clemment found a loose puck in a frenzied scrum in the crease and banged it home at 2:07 to make it 3-1 on the power play goal. Connor Johnston and Trevor Hoth were given assists on the score.

Just over two minutes later, Karl Andersen recovered in time from a glove to the chops to slap in a loose puck on the low right side. Dahl was given a helper on the score at 4:19 of the third that gave TW a three-goal lead.

That score held for over six minutes, and just when it looked like TW was poised to add the dagger while on a power play, Minnesota spoiled the party by scoring a short-handed goal.

Nick Nielsen grabbed a loose puck at center ice and set sail down the left side on a 2-on-1 rush. Using the other forward as a decoy, Nielsen slipped the puck between Woodman's pads to cut the lead to 4-2 with just over seven minutes left to play.

The teams took penalties just four seconds apart with about five minutes to go to set up a 4-on-4, but neither team could take advantage of all the open ice.

After an icing call on TW, Minnesota coach Phil Housley called a time-out to set up a play while pulling the goalie for an extra attacker. That move backfired when Navin got control of the puck and slid home an empty-netter just inside the left post with 59 seconds remaining to stretch the lead to 5-2.

Then with just 13 seconds left, Pat Moore scored on a nice backdoor pass from Nick DeCenzo to account for the final Minnesota score in a 5-3 game.

Lehr (19) and Tim Shaughnessy (6) combined for 25 stops for Minnesota.