Photo by: courtesy The Minnesota Daily
After a sweep of Maine to start the season the DU men’s hockey team followed it up with series splits to Notre Dame and Minnesota-Duluth, but got back on track this past weekend with an impressive road sweep of Minnesota. The Pioneers defeated the Golden Gophers 5-1 on Friday night and 4-1 on Sunday afternoon at Mariucci Arena.
“It’s always nice to get a sweep no matter how old your team is. But I think that it is good to get to a sweep against a team like Minnesota to build our confidence,” said sophomore forward Rhett Rakhshani.
Denver (6-2, 3-1) is off to its best start overall since the 2003-04 season when the team started the season 6-1 and ended the year with the first of back-to-back national championships.
No. 7 DU has scored first in every game this season and Friday night it continued as Rakhshani found the back of the net for the first time this season with just over three minutes remaining in the first period.
With a 1-0 lead heading into the second period, sophomore Tyler Ruegsegger extended the lead off a pass from sophomore Brock Trotter just two minutes in. Fourteen minutes later, Ruegsegger netted his fourth goal of the season to give the Pioneers a 3-0 lead.
Just 43 seconds into the third period Denver scored again, this time Trotter lit the lamp for his fourth of the season and six minutes later freshman Tyler Bozak added another to give DU a 5-0 lead. Minnesota would finally find the back of the net five minutes later and that would be it as Denver wins 5-1.
The Pioneers finished night three for seven on the power-play after going into the game just three for 37 in the previous six games.
“We have been working hard in practice and games but things just weren’t paying off. We changed a few things up this week and finally got rewarded,” said Rakhshani about the power-play.
With the win, senior goaltender Peter Mannino defeated Minnesota for the first time in his career as he stopped a season-high 36 shots. He has allowed one or less goals in now six games this season.
On Sunday afternoon, the Gophers finally beat the streak and scored first just over eight minutes into the first period. It didn’t take long for Denver to strike back as freshmen Tyler Bozak went top-shelf on the Minnesota goalie to tie the game just five minutes later.
Forty three seconds later Rakhshani gave Denver a 2-1 lead with a power-play goal. After a scoreless second period, Bozak struck again, this time on a nice breakaway six minutes in to the final period. With two minutes remaining and an empty Minnesota net, Bozak capped off a great game with an empty-net goal and his first career collegiate hat trick.
“People always doubt if a scorer at juniors can still be effective at a higher level, I think he proved that he can. He is a great kid and works very hard, he got rewarded this weekend,” said Rakhshani about Bozak.
In the game, the Gophers out shot Denver 33 to 23 and went 0 for 6 on the power-play while Denver continued its improved power-play with a one-for-four performance.
Mannino stopped 32 shots in the win and is now tied for ninth on DU’s all-time wins list for goalies with 44.
Twenty four of the 25 Denver goal’s this season have been scored by freshmen and sophomore’s, with the loan upper-classmen goal coming from senior Tom May in the 3-1 win at Notre Dame.
DU will have a week off and then host Minnesota State (3-2-1, 1-2-1) on Nov. 16 and Nov. 17 at Magness Arena.
