Denver hockey traveled to St. Louis, Mo. to take on Lindenwood over the weekend where they came out with a 4-3 loss on Friday night and a 4-0 win on Saturday night.
Friday’s game started neck and neck but Denver survived a Lindenwood power play after junior forward Sam Harris was penalized for slashing 18:40 into the game. The period ended with no goals but the Crimson and Gold ended with nine shots in the period.
The second period started with an onslaught from Lindenwood, with 11 shots before their first goal. After another power play without scoring, Giovanni Morneau took the puck around the back of the Denver goal and found Oliver Houde who slipped it past junior goaltender Paxton Geisel to put Lindenwood up 1-0 7:47 into the second period.
Denver found a chance to equalize on a power play shortly after. Freshman forward Clarke Caswell got the puck in the center of the ice and flipped it to Harris who found the net from close range to bring Denver back to level at 1-1 with 8:56 left in the second period.
Just 40 seconds later, senior forward Samu Salminen forced a turnover near the middle of the ice and took the puck down the left towards the goal before finding sophomore forward Hagen Burrows who scored to make the score 2-1 in favor of Denver.
Lindenwood responded quickly with a Ty Hipkin breakaway. He beat two Denver defenders and found the top corner of the goal to equal the score at 2-2 13:03 into the second period.
Neither team could find a spark for most of the third period until Jacob Fletcher stole the puck in a Denver attack and broke away to give Lindenwood a 3-2 lead with just under three minutes left in the game.
Lindenwood got their fourth goal when Denver pulled their goalie with 1:26 remaining in the game. Then with 53 seconds to play, Burrows got one back to make the final score 4-3 in favor of Lindenwood.
This marked the first time in program history that Denver has lost a game to Lindenwood, having won all five previous matchups.
The next night, the Crimson and Gold came looking for revenge. They found it almost immediately, with junior defender Garret Brown firing the puck to Caswell who scored from close range just 1:16 into the game. This was Caswell’s fifth point of the season, with four of them coming from the last three games.
Denver was quiet until the last seven seconds of the second period. Sophomore forward Jake Fisher got the puck from a Lindenwood mistake and found Burrows, before getting the puck back and scoring to put DU up 2-0.
Denver extended their lead 9:39 into the third period when junior defenseman Boston Buckberger found Harris across the ice who found the open side of the net to push the score to 3-0.
With just over nine minutes left in the game, Burrows found Salminen on the breakaway who beat Klayton Knapp in a one-on-one to give Denver the 4-0 win.
Freshman goaltender Quentin Miller got his second start of the season and recorded his first career shutout with 19 saves to intensify the competition for Denver’s starting goaltender spot.
Burrows scored three goals over the weekend, with Friday night being his first multi-goal performance in his career at DU.
Denver will embark on a difficult road trip next weekend. The Crimson and Gold will play No. 9 Boston College on Oct. 24 then Northeastern on Oct. 25 before returning home for Homecoming weekend Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 for matchups against Alaska Anchorage.
