What a weekend it was supposed to be for the men’s’ hockey team and what a weekend it turned out to be.

Third-ranked Denver won the opener 4-3 against fourth-ranked Wisconsin and saw a two-goal lead disappear in a tough 3-3 tie in the finale.

“Wisconsin is a great team. I thought we played great. We are definitely happy about the weekend, we got three points,” said freshman goalie Peter Mannino.

Two sellout crowds witnessed the nation’s best offense put on yet another show. The Pioneers currently have seven players with 10 goals or more on the season and also seven players with 20 or more points.

After Wisconsin scored the opening goal on Friday night, senior Luke Fulghum started the Denver scoring with a one-time shot to tie things up.

Just over five minutes later, junior Brett Skinner put the Pioneers up 2-1 with a great driving shot. With time expiring in the first period the Badgers tied things up with a breakaway goal.

Denver got back on track just eight minutes into the second period as freshman Paul Stastny netted his 12th goal of the season and later senior Jon Foster put the eventual winning goal through the posts.

“I expected this type of a series, hard fought, close, changes of momentum and would both teams like a couple of plays back, absolutely,” said Head Coach George Gwozdecky.

The second night was just as exciting and thrilling as Wisconsin once again got the first goal, but the defending national champions came back to score three straight.

“They scored the first goal both nights. Our team is able to rally back and we have been able to do it all year,” said Fulghum.

The rally was once again started by the senior Fulghum, who put in his 17th goal of the year on a five-on-three advantage.

Then, Foster put in his first goal of the night on a rebound and later put in the eventual game tier on a driving slap shot, which turned out to be his team-leading 18th goal of the year.

“I am just going out there and trying to produce a lot of offense and put the puck on the net as much as I can,” said Foster.

With a 3-1 Pioneer lead and less than half of the third period remaining it looked like a sure victory, but the Badgers put up quite an effort and came back to tie things up and steal a point from the weekend series.

“Wisconsin played really well tonight. They had us on our heels for a little bit. We came up three to one in the third and they fought back and they played really hard and it is not disappointing. It is a tie,” said Foster.

Neither team could find the net in the scoreless five-minute overtime. Even with the tie, Denver picked up three points on the weekend, and with a Colorado College loss on Friday night, it leaves DU just two points back of the Tigers with two games in hand.

“Sure it is disappointing anytime you drop a 3-1 lead going into the third period. We are happy with three out of 4 points,” Fulghum said.

The Pioneers will now host their final home stand of the regular season Friday and Saturday night against WCHA foe Minnesota Duluth, whom they beat and tied earlier this season on the road with both games going into overtime.

“This league is so good from top to bottom. Every team feels like playing the number one team in the nation, we can’t look too far ahead, we have to just play well and get up for every weekend from here on in,” said Foster.

Denver is pushing for the number one spot in the WCHA and has already secured home ice for the first round of the playoffs, with the winner of the best of three series moving on to the WCHA final five in Minneapolis.

If this weekend was any indication of what the next month and a half could be like, then we are definitely in for a big treat.