This weekend, the Pioneers split games with current National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) leader and No. 2 team in the nation St. Cloud State. After a loss on Friday night, the Pioneers were able to rebound Saturday to take the second game of the series.
Denver came into Friday night’s game as one of the hottest teams in the nation, going 7-1-4 over their last four games. The impressive streak was bolstered by the Pioneers’ top-ranked conference defense and the play of senior goaltender Sam Brittain. As it turned out, St. Cloud’s offense (ranked first) would test them early and often.
Friday’s game started out in favor of Denver as freshman defender Will Butcher scored just 1:44 into the first period. However, the game began to slip away after that. A first period equalizer and two second period goals by St. Cloud State left Denver in a hole they never found their way out of.
St. Cloud would go on to outscore Denver with a final of 6-3. The six goals were the most the Pioneers have given up this season.
“Our penalty kill wasn’t good enough, and I thought our transition to defense really hurt us tonight,” said head coach Jim Montgomery in an interview after the game. Montgomery gave insight to the defensive breakdown Friday night, giving credit to St. Cloud’s powerful offense as well as elaborating on some of Denver’s weaker points.
“[W]hen you look at the whole of the game we lost the resolve in the third period. You know as soon as they went back up 4-2, I thought we started getting out of character for our team. We took unnecessary penalties, we were taking longer shifts,” Montgomery said.
The Pioneers committed a total of six penalties in the first game of the series.
“We’ve got to learn that it’s a 60 minute game and just because things didn’t go our way, or if we didn’t have puck luck, we have to stick with it,” added Montgomery.
The message seemed to stick Saturday as the Pioneers came back out and defeated the Huskies 5-2. First period scores by Quentin Shore and David Makowski gave Denver a lead it would never relinquish, as the defense regained its form in the rematch. Brittain also seemed to rally after his statistically worst performance of the season, making a total of 37 saves.
With the series split, the Pioneers moved into a third place tie in the conference with Nebraska-Omaha, just five points off of the lead. Denver now sits at 11-7-4 overall with a chance to keep their hot streak alive as they take on another conference opponent in Minnesota-Duluth this weekend on the road in a two-game series.
