It was another extremely close road game for the #1 Denver Pioneers (14-4-0, 8-2-0 NCHC) but thanks to a highlight-reel save from Magnus Chrona and freshman Aidan Thompson’s overtime goal, they earned their second straight overtime victory over the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs (8-10-0, 4-6-0 NCHC) with a 4-3 nail biter. This time, though, there was no goaltender interference controversy and the Pios head home to Denver with four more points and three points clear of second-place St. Cloud State, who was shut out by last-place Miami, 5-0.
Carter Mazur scored his 14th of the season, Casey Dornbach opened the scoring, and McKade Webster scored the goal that sent the game to overtime.
We will have a full weekend road trip recap tomorrow.
Winning on the road in this league is not easy, even in a relative down year for the NCHC.
DU got the job done at UMD, but twice needed OT to do it, and had to play much of the weekend coming from behind. Now that we’re getting into the halfway point in the season, we’re seeing vast improvements in opponents that started slowly as they integrated new faces. UMD was #42 in the PWR coming into this weekend, and matched Denver’s speed, skating, shots and intensity level all night long on Saturday.
We also saw Omaha’s improvement as they shut out the Pios two weeks ago and outplayed DU badly on Friday night. And CC just swept Omaha on the weekend and has suddenly vaulted itself into third place. Last place Miami smoked St. Cloud in a 5-0 shutout last night. North Dakota seems to be turning its season around with a road semi-sweep at WMU (a shootout win and a full win).
All of this points to a much more difficult second half.
Strap in…