Over the weekend, the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs came to Magness Arena to pay the Pioneers a visit in a conference matchup where both teams ranked in the top 10 in the nation. UMD won 3-2 on Friday, Jan. 31 and 4-1 on Saturday, Feb. 1, which broke the Pioneer’s 11-game unbeaten streak. As a result, Denver fell three spots to No. 7 and UMD jumped four spots to be No. 6 in the polls.
On Friday, the Bulldogs were able to take advantage of the Pioneers, who were bogged down with seven penalties in the first two periods. UMD’s Nick Swaney was first on the board for the Bulldogs on a power play at 7:40 of the first period. Freshman defenseman Justin Lee (Waskada, Manitoba) then scored for Denver at 12:22 with a wrist shot for his first collegiate goal. UMD’s Justin Richards scored in the final seconds of the first period on another power play to give UMD a 2-1 lead.
At 2:06 of the second period, junior defenseman Ian Mitchell (Calahoo, Alberta) dropped the puck for freshman forward Bobby Brink (Minnetonka, Minn.), who benefited from a very lucky bounce off UMD defenseman Louie Roehl’s stick to sneak into the goalpost on a power play to tie the game. The goal marked the fourth game in a row when Brink has scored a goal. UMD struck again at 14:29 of the second with Cole Koepke to make it 3-2.
The third period went scoreless from both teams. Freshman goaltender Magnus Chrona (Stockholm, Sweden) accounted for 24 saves to UMD’s 39.
On Saturday, both teams went scoreless until 8:59 of the second period, when UMD’s Noah Cates scored on a breakaway. Denver struggled on the power play all night, going 0-4 up to that point.
The Bulldogs scored again 39 seconds into the third period, with a one-timer from Swaney. Denver finally broke their bad luck on power plays with a wrist shot from sophomore forward Emilio Pettersen (Manglerud, Norway) at 7:44 on what was the Pioneer’s seventh power play of the night. Any momentum the Pioneers once had was cut three minutes later with another goal from Swaney, this time on a power play of their own. Keopke scored an empty-netter with just over two minutes remaining in the game after junior goaltender Devin Cooley (Los Gatos, Calif.) was benched to seal the 4-1 victory for the Bulldogs.
UMD’s sweep of Denver was the first home sweep the Pioneers have faced since December 2015.
Denver will have a week off of play before heading to Grand Forks, N.D. to face the No. 1 ranked North Dakota Hawks for their second series matchup of the season.
