MINNEAPOLIS — It was a rematch of last season’s NCHC Frozen Faceoff championship game, and Miami hoped for a different outcome.
The RedHawks, however, didn’t give much thought to the loss to Denver that ended their season last year.
[scg_html_nchc2015]Friday night, Miami posted a 6-3 victory over the Pioneers at Target Center in the NCHC semifinal.
“These guys wanted to play for a championship, and in order to do that, you have to get through Denver,” Miami coach Enrico Blasi said. “There’s never an easy moment when you’re playing a team like Denver. They come at you in waves and you’ve just got to bend but you can’t break.”
Miami learned that quickly Friday night.
Riley Barber put the RedHawks on the board first at 14:15, but Denver fought through its slow start when Will Butcher launched a point shot past Jay Williams (22 saves) minutes later at 17:27.
Anthony Louis kept Miami on top going into the second period with his backhand that slipped past Evan Crowley at 18:58, leaving Denver short of following through on its game plan.
“A big emphasis was to be really good in the first 10 minutes,” Denver coach Jim Montgomery said. “I didn’t think we were poor, but we didn’t execute our game plan. Give Miami credit: Their speed and tenacity and wining one-on-one battles was the difference in the game. We gave too much time to their best players and their best players made us pay.”
That’s what continued. Cody Murphy slipped in a wrist shot from the left circle at 4:53 before Austin Czarnik showcased why he entered the tournament with six goals and eight points in his past four games.
The senior skated with the puck behind the net, brought it to the circle and walked back toward the net to send it past Tanner Jaillet (eight saves) at 18:26.
“I’ve seen that from [Czarnik] quite a bit,” Blasi said. “When he’s on, that’s what he does. He made a great play. We talk about not forcing pucks and he didn’t force it. He finished it off.”
[photoshelter-gallery g_id=”G0000sIIw9PKAc24″ g_name=”20150320-NCHC-Denver-University-Miami-of-Ohio-Bradley-K-Olson” f_show_caption=”t” f_show_slidenum=”t” img_title=”casc” pho_credit=”iptc” f_link=”t” f_bbar=”t” fsvis=”f” width=”500″ height=”375″ bgcolor=”#AAAAAA” bgtrans=”t” btype=”old” bcolor=”#CCCCCC” crop=”f” trans=”xfade” tbs=”4000″ f_ap=”t” linkdest=”c” f_fullscreen=”f” f_constrain=”f” twoup=”f” f_topbar=”f” f_bbarbig=”” f_htmllinks=”f” f_enable_embed_btn=”f” f_show_watermark=”f” f_send_to_friend_btn=”f” f_smooth=”f” f_mtrx=”f” f_up=”f” target=”_self” wmds=”llQ6QNgpeC.p1Ucz7U.f22Fbo5BPRuXHL4BJ1cFLebkuMd91oWbzTu6FA2yObLkrqjaOfA–” ]Denver attempted to climb out of the hole it dug when Daniel Doremus shot in a rebound with 1:08 left on the clock in the second period to make it 4-2.
Trevor Moore added another at 6:05 of the third, but the Pioneers’ attempt to make a comeback was silenced by a goal by Louie Belpedio at 9:38 and an empty-netter by Alex Gacek to seal the game at 6-3.
Denver’s season will continue into the NCAA tournament, and it can use its slow start to prepare for what’s next.
“I think we can take a lot from this game,” Denver’s Grant Arnold said. “First off, we didn’t come out and play our game the first 30 minutes and that really hurt us. We’re fortunate enough that this game isn’t going to end our season. So we’ve got to really learn from that. We need more intensity in practice; we need more intensity before the game.
“Bottom line, we’ve got to execute our game plan. We’ve got to play Pioneer hockey for 60 minutes, and that’s how we’ve been successful all year. We’re fortunate this didn’t end our season and we’re going to take that and really learn from it.”
[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/5yyz9xddci0]
[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/Li7Jj2lkAzo]
