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Behind 36 saves from Evan Cowley and goals from its top line, the No. 7 Denver Pioneers blanked the No. 6 Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, 4-0, to sweep the series between the two clubs.
“That’s a really good hockey team, ultra competitive, and short a couple of healthy bodies that are difference makers, and when that happens, I mean, if we were short (Danton) Heinen and (Trevor) Moore, it’d be tough for us to win hockey games too,” said Denver coach Jim Montgomery. “Their coach had a great game plan. We were fortunate. We got bounces this weekend, and we had some players tonight make some high-end plays.”
The Bulldogs came out with a lot of jump, preventing Denver from getting any shots on net for the first several minutes while generating several good chances of their own.
“We knew they were going to come out hard, and we just had to weather the storm early,” said Cowley. “The guys did a really good job of clearing rebounds. They boxed out, and jumped on rebounds.”
After an up-and-down first period, it looked like it would be scoreless, especially when the Bulldogs killed a late power-play chance for Denver. However, the Bulldogs couldn’t clear the zone after the penalty expired, and Moore got the puck behind the goal line and circled around the net to his left, getting a quick spinaround shot on net from the bottom of the right circle. The puck hit the post, came back out, hit Kasimir Kaskisuo, then crossed the goal line before a diving Kaskisuo could stop it. The goal came at 19:38.
“That’s a huge momentum goal, a great individual effort,” said Montgomery. “He picked that top corner and it went shoulder, post, leg and in. Those are the kind of bounces we are getting, but it was a great play by Trevor.”
“I thought the first 10 minutes we came out and did a good job and had good energy, and then they got the late goal and they were the better team the last two periods,” said Bulldogs coach Scott Sandelin. “We looked real spent actually. We made a couple of mistakes again which they capitalized on which gave them the two and three-goal leads, and we never got back in it.”
After withstanding several strong pushes from the Bulldogs, Heinen gave the Pioneers a two-goal lead with a pretty play when he got the puck in the slot, cleanly beat a Bulldogs defender with a nifty deke, then beat Kaskisuo with a quick snap shot top corner stick side at 7:36.
“I’m sitting back in my net in awe of the plays they do,” said Cowley of Denver’s top line of Heinen, Moore, and Daniel Doremus.
“He’s had a great year, and it’s probably one of the best lines I’ve seen,” said Sandelin of Heinen. “Certainly the way they’ve been playing right now the last month and a half, they’ve really caught fire, and we knew that coming in. We did a good job last night of limiting their opportunities, but they still got some because good lines do.”
Right after failing to capitalize on a power play, Denver made it 3-0 when Larkin Jacobson got the puck behind the goal line and blindly threw a backhand out to the crease. Matt Tabrum was all alone in the slot and one-timed a slap shot past Kaskisuo at 12:38.
In a sign of how the game went for the Bulldogs, they started the third period on a power play, but it was negated by a too many men penalty.
With the teams skating four-on-four late and Kaskisuo pulled for an extra skater, Joey LaLeggia potted an empty-net goal at 17:37 of the third to seal the win and series sweep for Denver, which moved up to third in the PairWise rankings and advances to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff in the Target Center in Minneapolis. Denver won the inaugural Frozen Faceoff in 2014.
“We talked about the journey begins this weekend, but we weren’t looking past UMD,” said Montgomery. “We’ll start talking about getting excited to get to the Target Center now.”
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