The No. 8 DU men’s hockey team split another series this weekend, this time defeating the No. 17 University of Minnesota Duluth 4-3 on Friday, but falling 4-2 Saturday in Minnesota.
Denver (17-9-3, 13-7-2 WCHA) is now tied for first place in the WCHA with Wisconsin.
On Friday, Denver’s power-play was finally effective, going 4-for-7, with all four of the Pioneers’ goals on the power-play.
“We were 2-for-19 last week and we were 4-for-7 on Friday,” head coach George Gwozdecky said. “It was significant the difference in how we executed. We didn’t change a whole lot from two weeks ago to this past weekend on the power-play, but we did talk about the little things that do make our power-plays successful.”
On Friday, UMD took the lead seven minutes into the first period, but junior assistant captain Tyler Ruegsegger netted two back-to-back power-play goals, a 5-on-3 advantage at 8:31 and then another at 9:52 into the period.
Minnesota Duluth was able to tie the game going into the second period, but just 15 seconds after the intermission, freshman Patrick Wiercioch tallied another power-play goal assisted by sophomore Anthony Maiani and junior assistant captain Rhett Rakhshani. Denver held on to the lead going into the final period, but UMD once again tied the game, 3-3.
Rakhshani recorded the game winner at 6:19 of the third period, assisted by Ruegsegger and freshman Joe Colbourne.
On Saturday, however, Minnesota Duluth jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first 14 minutes of play.
“The second game of the series in this league is always the most difficult one to win whether you’ve won Friday or lost Friday,” Gwozdecky said. “Duluth was desperate. Having lost Friday night, they were losing their grip on home ice for the first round of the playoffs, and so they played with great desperation. They came out flying; they scored three goals, bang, bang, bang in the first 12 minutes of the game.”
Kyle Ostrow scored Denver’s fist goal with less than three minutes remaining in the first period, but UMD hung on to its lead, tallying another goal with only 39 seconds remaining in the second period.
Rakhshani netted the final goal on the power-play, making it a 4-2 game.
This Friday, the Pioneers will travel to Colorado Springs to take on in-state rival, the Colorado College Tigers.
The rematch will continue at home on March 7, as Denver’s final game of the regular season, due to scheduling conflicts.
“We look at it as critical for us,” Gwozdecky said. “Obviously one of our goals this year is to win the Gold Pan back, and in order to do that we have to win on Friday night. We want to be able to keep our national ranking and continue our position in the league.”
In order to regain the Gold Pan Trophy, the Pioneers will need to win both games against CC, after tying 2-2 and losing 2-3 to them earlier in the season.
With just six games remaining in the regular season, Friday will be an especially critical game for the Tigers as they have faced a slump the second half of the season, falling from the No. 1 spot in the NCAA to No. 18.
DUPB will be taking 50 students to Friday’s game. To RSVP for free bus and tickets, e-mail duvscc@gmail.com.
“These two teams have such a long historied rivalry to beat the other guy is most important,” Gwozdecky said. “It doesn’t matter what the records are, what the rankings are, what the positioning is, I think that will continue this Friday night. The Gold Pan is at stake.”
