Photo courtesy DU Athletics
In two games against the Miami (OH) RedHawks last weekend, the #15 University of Nebraska Omaha Mavericks tallied 15 goals. They scored an astonishing 11 in Friday night’s game and four on Saturday. Naturally, a week later, Tanner Jaillet and the dominant #5 University of Denver Pioneers held them scoreless in a 5-0 shutout.
If Denver was concerned about Omaha’s high-powered offensive attack that has scored 3.77 goals per game, they certainly didn’t show it. The game was close for the first 20 minutes, but the Pioneers took over the game for the final 40. The Pioneers seemed to take the blueprint of the second half of the 2016-17 season and execute it to perfection against the Mavericks.
“We had our best Thursday practice of the year,” Montgomery said of yesterday’s practice. “As a staff, we said, ‘oh, we look like a championship team today.’ It was nice that it carried over. You could tell the energy, just the way we competed was very impressive I thought.”
The Pios only had a 1-0 lead after the first period thanks to Jarid Lukosevicius’ perfect tip-on off an Ian Mitchell shot from the left point on the power play. Omaha goalie Evan Weninger saw the puck well and was able to make even the most acrobatic of saves.
Weninger kept it up in the 2nd period, but Denver took over the game in a big way from the moment the puck dropped on the second period. The Pios played with a renewed vigor and weren’t going to let the Mavs breathe. Even though a Mitchell goal was the only marker of the middle frame, Denver was stepping on Omaha’s throats. If not for Weninger’s heroics, the game could have easily gotten out of hand by the second intermission.
Ian Mitchell is smooth like Santana 🎵 #DU1NATION pic.twitter.com/73P3zybrPN
— Denver Hockey (@DU_Hockey) January 20, 2018
“UNO is very scary, their transition offense is very scary,” Montgomery said. “Their ability to make plays is very scary. We just kept talking about the importance of when they’re about to get possession, everybody has to get back above the puck. I thought we got better and better at that throughout the game.”
instead, the rout was on in the third period. Denver added two more power play goals off of Troy Terry’s and Lukosevicius’ sticks while defenseman Erich Fear added an even-strength tally for his first career goal. Mitchell assisted on Terry’s and Lukosevicius’ goals for his third and fourth points of the game while Dylan Gambrell and Henrik Borgström both added helpers in the period. In a sense, Weninger simply delayed the inevitable by playing so well in the second period.
Terry goes top 🧀🧀🧀 #DU1NATION pic.twitter.com/QcHENC8RkC
— Denver Hockey (@DU_Hockey) January 20, 2018
Weninger was stellar through the first two periods but Jaillet matched him and then some for the entirety of the game to earn his third shutout of the season and seventh of his career.
After winning the Mike Richter Award last season and putting forth a very good first half of the season, Jaillet’s play is often taken for granted. The fact is, Jaillet anchors this championship-caliber team. It’s hard to say where they’d be without him, but thankfully there’s no need to ponder that question.
“Tanner was spectacular tonight…They’re momentum saves,” Montgomery said of Jaillet’s performance in the game and second period saves. “Instead of them getting any momentum, it’s like ‘oh god, that goalie’s on tonight.’ And then we’re going the other way and we were able to extend the lead instead of being in a tight game.”
The Pioneers are playing their best hockey of the season right now. Denver playing complete, 60-minute hockey; they’re playing Denver Pioneer hockey.
“I don’t know about that,” Montgomery said when he was asked if this was the most complete game of the year. “But it’s the four best games in a row of the year and that’s what we’re looking to do. We’re looking to become a consistently hard team to play against, offensively and defensively.”
A four-game stretch of good hockey is a start. It’s a great sign to see the Pios take these steps forward to start the second half of the season. Now, they need to sustain this progress and keep growing over the next few months. Keeping the streak going tomorrow night with number five would be a great start.
They said on the news that we have beat Omaha 11 games in a row? Ownership. Great game. For the first time in a long time, I was reminded of last year’s champions. Pretty much everyone played great, especially Jailett. Keep it up, now is a good time to get on a roll.
Best game of the year. Three periods of relentless Pioneer hockey.
During the 2nd period Pios seemed to have the puck in Omaha’s end for an eternity.Credit to Weninger for keeping the game close at that point. Kudos to Jaillet for another shut out!
So good to see Denver Hockey again, There’s a lot of games left to play, but if the Pios keep building on this game St. Paul looks a lot more realistic than it did 1 month ago.
They said on the news that we have beat Omaha 11 games in a row? Ownership. Great game. For the first time in a long time, I was reminded of last year’s champions. Pretty much everyone played great, especially Jailett. Keep it up, now is a good time to get on a roll.
Best game of the year. Three periods of relentless Pioneer hockey.
During the 2nd period Pios seemed to have the puck in Omaha’s end for an eternity.Credit to Weninger for keeping the game close at that point. Kudos to Jaillet for another shut out!
So good to see Denver Hockey again, There’s a lot of games left to play, but if the Pios keep building on this game St. Paul looks a lot more realistic than it did 1 month ago.
Now, that was fun. Pios looked like the Pios from games past–pushing the pace, dominating puck possession, and lots of pressure. I also liked the fact that they crashed the net more last night. Great game.
Great to see Fear get on the scoreboard. That was really cool. And I really like Barrow’s game–he’s a banger and creates havoc but he and his linemates had some good shifts last night in the offensive zone. Gambrell’s pass to Terry for that 3rd goal was a thing of beauty, as was Borgstom’s pass to Luko for the 4th. I saw a huge smile on Borgstrom’s face after that. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him crack a smile out there. Those guys were having fun, looked confident, and looked poised.
Let’s get another W tonight!!
So much fun to watch last night! The Pios were so focused, and played to win, and you could see it in every shift, start to finish. Omaha rarely had sustained puck possession all night, and the Pios’ were especially strong at strips and retrievals. The big guns looked like the big guns again, and it’s games like that where you are reminded of how good this team can be. More please!
Now, that was fun. Pios looked like the Pios from games past–pushing the pace, dominating puck possession, and lots of pressure. I also liked the fact that they crashed the net more last night. Great game.
Great to see Fear get on the scoreboard. That was really cool. And I really like Barrow’s game–he’s a banger and creates havoc but he and his linemates had some good shifts last night in the offensive zone. Gambrell’s pass to Terry for that 3rd goal was a thing of beauty, as was Borgstom’s pass to Luko for the 4th. I saw a huge smile on Borgstrom’s face after that. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him crack a smile out there. Those guys were having fun, looked confident, and looked poised.
Let’s get another W tonight!!
So much fun to watch last night! The Pios were so focused, and played to win, and you could see it in every shift, start to finish. Omaha rarely had sustained puck possession all night, and the Pios’ were especially strong at strips and retrievals. The big guns looked like the big guns again, and it’s games like that where you are reminded of how good this team can be. More please!