Photo courtesy of DU Athletics

DENVER – Sir Spencer was Boston College’s Knight in shining armor. But Cole Guttman found the one flaw in Knight’s game early in the second period and that was all that top-ranked Denver needed to beat the #6 Eagles, 3-0 on Friday night at Magness Arena. Denver’s win was their fifth straight and 16th straight in regular season nonconference play.

The score stayed low thanks to Spencer Knight’s play in BC’s crease, but it wasn’t for a lack of Denver’s offensive effort. The Pioneers out-attempted the Eagles 75-51 and outshot them 31-23 along the way. Knight made all but one of the 29 shots he faced and appeared to barely break a sweat at that. But, to Denver’s credit, they had a goaltender equally up to the task in Magnus Chrona who stopped all 23 BC shots. Knight may have led the way in the saves category but Chrona easily won the highlight reel contest, making two game-saving stops, including one to bail out captain Ian Mitchell after a bad pass in the neutral zone.

The Pioneers rolled all four lines throughout the evening and every grouping head coach David Carle put on the ice held an otherwise potent BC offensive attack in check. Denver dominated the neutral zone and their forecheck was stifling, to say the least. Thanks to his skaters’ work in the offensive and neutral zones, it wasn’t until the third period that Chrona really had to work to keep the Pios’ slim 1-0 lead. But when he had to save the game, he did, and then some.

It was Cole Guttman’s power play marker off of a rare Knight rebound barely three minutes into the second period that finally broke the scoreless deadlock. Ian Mitchell took a pass from Emilio Pettersen and skated into the high slot before unleashing a wrister that Knight padded away. For the first time on the night, though, the rebound was in a perfect position for a driving Guttman to find and tap home past Knight’s sprawling left pad to get the Pios on the board. Denver still had nearly four minutes of power play time left thanks to a five-minute major assessed against Luke McInnis for a high hit on Jake Durflinger along the boards. But Spencer Knight was still in the game and helped BC kill off the rest of the long penalty.

Tyson McLellan and Brett Stapley each added empty-net goals in the last minute of play to pad the score and make the game look more lopsided than it really was. In the end, though, this was every bit the #1 vs #6 matchup it was marketed to be. Sure, the season is young and lines and pairings are just now starting to jell, but this early season matchup between two of the country’s best teams didn’t feel like an October game with little on the line. It may only be October 18th but on the ice at Magness Arena tonight, it looked and felt more like March 18th with everything on the line.

Highlights

Postgame Comments

David Carle:

Ian Mitchell: