The Pioneers traveled to Madison, Wisc., over the weekend, where they split a conference series with unranked Wisconsin, winning 3-0 on Friday night before falling 5-2 on Saturday night.
After the Friday win, the Pioneers moved from No. 7 to No. 6 in the Pairwise rankings, but Saturday’s loss dropped them back to No. 11. Denver needs to stay in the top 16 to qualify for the NCAA tournament. With two series left in the regular season, the Pioneers need to perform.
“I think it would be very interesting to be able to chart from maybe three weeks ago, and you take the Pairwise rankings Friday, and then you take another copy before all the games on Saturday and then another copy after the games are done on Saturday. I think you’d see some real changes,” said head coach George Gwozdecky last week. “But the thing that’s most important for us and every team is that you have one thing that you can control: how you play. We know that we can control our effort to hopefully give ourselves the best chances.”
In Friday’s game, senior forward Luke Salazar, sophomore forward Jason Zucker and sophomore forward Nick Shore each chipped in a goal for the Pioneers. Sophomore goalie Sam Brittain gained his second career shutout after stopping 28 shots.
On Saturday, after numerous defensive errors, the Pioneers fell to the Badgers 5-2, dropping to 18-10-4, 13-7-4 WCHA.
Zucker and junior captain Drew Shore scored DU’s only two goals, and Brittain had 30 saves in his fourth consecutive start of the season.
Mark Zengerle, Brandon Woods, Keegan Meuer, Michael Mersch and Justin Shultz each scored for the Badgers. Landon Peterson saved 22 shots and Wisconsin improved to 13-15-2, 8-14-2 WCHA.
“We got our butt kicked [Saturday],” said Gwozdecky. “We made some critical errors in our own zone, and Wisconsin took full advantage. We must be better defensively, and we will be next weekend against North Dakota.”
The Pioneers return home to take on North Dakota on Friday and Saturday.
With only two series left in the season, the series against North Dakota will be key in the Pioneers’ hunt for the postseason.
“Our goals are to win two games,” said Gwozdecky. “Certainly the one area that we know is that they’re very good offensively, and our team defense needs to be much better than it was on Saturday.”
The Pioneers are 6-8-1 in their last 15 meetings with the Fighting Sioux since the 2007-2008 season, and were 1-3-0 in the series last season.
Currently, North Dakota is ranked No. 14 in the Pairwise Rankings, and are continuing their hunt for the playoffs as well. They also sit at No. 14 in the USHCO.com poll and No. 15 in the USA Today/USA Hockey poll. The Fighting Sioux are No. 5 in WCHA, while the Pioneers sit at No. 3.
“Both teams in their season so far have mirrored each other. Both teams have struggled in many areas and had devastating injuries from many of their strong players for extended periods of time,” said Gwozdecky.
North Dakota is led by junior forward trio Carter Rowney, Danny Kristo and Corban Knight, as well as sophomore forward Brock Nelson.
Nelson leads the team with 35 points, made up by 20 goals and 15 assists; Kristo is second with 33 points, 14 goals and 19 assists; Knight has 30, 11 goals and 19 assists and Rowney is fourth with 23 points, 14 goals and 9 assists.
North Dakota’s defense is led by senior defenseman Ben Blood and junior defenseman Andrew MacWilliam. Blood has recorded 12 assists this season, in addition to being one of the Fighting Sioux’s top defensemen.
Senior Brad Eidsness andjunior Aaron Dell rotate as the team’s goalies. Eidsness has played 11 games for the Fighting Sioux this season, allowed 16 goals and has a .926 save percentage. Dell has allowed 66 goals in 25 games this season and has a .890 save percentage.
“Both teams are very similar in offense, in defense and in special teams. I think the history of these teams in the past few years mirror each other, and this poses to be a great series of college hockey,” said Gwozdecky.
The puck will drop in Magness Arena on Friday at 8:07 p.m. and Saturday at 7:07 p.m., when the Pioneers continue their hunt for the NCAA tournment and their battle in the Pairwise rankings.
