The holiday break has mercifully arrived. The #4 Denver Pioneers (12-5-1, 5-3-0 NCHC) ended the first half of the season much like they played many their first 17 games – struggling to hold any kind of lead. Last weekend, they couldn’t hold a lead against the #1 North Dakota Fighting Hawks and this weekend, against the #13 Western Michigan Broncos (11-4-1, 4-4-0 NCHC), they scored first in both games, but the couldn’t secure a regulation win in either game. On Friday, the Broncos took over but tonight, in game two, the Pioneers never trailed. That wasn’t enough, though, as Western scored the tying marker with just 14 seconds left to force overtime in goaltender Paxton Geisel’s collegiate debut. Massimo Rizzo, though, earned the Pioneers the extra point with a goal barely a minute into extra time to secure the 6-5 victory.

The story remains the same for a Pioneers team that is, despite what looks like a good record with 12 wins in its first 18 games, struggling at the proverbial halfway point. Denver secured just four conference points in their last two weekends and has shown a concerning penchant for coughing up leads to teams in the top half of the Pairwise throughout its first 18 games. And tonight’s game in Kalamazoo was a perfect representation of how the season has gone thus far.

Tristan Broz opened the scoring by tipping a puck by Western goaltender Cameron Rowe before Miko Matikka (PPG) scored his third goal of the weekend to give the Pioneers what seemed like a strong, early 2-0 lead. It seemed DU agreed as they started to sit back again and Joe Cassetti pulled the hosts back to within one. Sean Behrens responded quickly with a power-play marker but Ethan Phillips turned around and beat Geisel through his five-hole immediately to enter the first intermission at 3-2, DU.

At the end of the opening period, Luke Grainger ran Geisel on a play where he could have easily avoided contacting the DU goaltender and a melee ensued, requiring several minutes’ worth of review time (and a failed WMU challenge, to boot). DU came out of the whole thing with only three minors while the Broncos were issued two game misconducts, one major for facemasking, and two minors, including one to Grainger for goaltender interference. It was chaos. So, at the beginning of the second, naturally, Miko Matikka doubled DU’s lead to 4-2 during the four-on-four period of the penalty time. That was all DU could muster in the second period, despite having a lengthy five-on-three opportunity after another failed WMU challenge.

The teams entered the third period with DU holding a precarious 4-3 lead that surely everyone inside Lawson Arena knew wasn’t going to stand for long. And everyone was right – Samuel Sjolund scored just 50 seconds into the third to tie it up. Yet again, DU couldn’t hold the lead.

Fortunately, Denver has the NCAA’s leading scorer – Jack Devine – on its roster and the junior sharpshooter hammered home a rebound to restore the DU lead with just more than 4 minutes left. But would Denver make the lead hold up? Nope!

After what felt like 74 different icings by the Pioneers as they were trying to slowly bleed the clock down to zero, the Broncos finally won a faceoff, Sam Colangelo threw a pass down low, and Joe Cassetti tapped the tying goal past Geisel with just 14 seconds left. It was a brutal goal to give up for a team looking for its first regulation win since game one against Omaha three weeks ago. Massimo Rizzo stopped the bleeding once and for all in overtime, though, with a gritty goal to secure the Pios’ second point.

It’s no secret what Denver needs to shore up when the second half of the season arrives in January. Defense and goaltending are holding this team back. They have far and away the best offense in the country and even an average defense would have the Pioneers entering the break at 18-0-0. Instead, they’ve played unfathomably bad defense against teams that aren’t ranked near the bottom of the Pairwise rankings and they have five losses and an embarrassing tie to show for it.

The good news is this – there are still 18 games left to fix what ails this team (a friend of the blog did a great thread as to what’s been plaguing the Pioneers, the first tweet of which is below) and David Carle’s teams have shown a great ability to turn things around in the second half of seasons. There’s every reason to have faith in ‘The Proscess’ but the results have to start showing themselves, and quickly once Niagara arrives at Magness Arena on January 5th.

Earning just four of 12 possible points in the final two weeks of the first half isn’t disastrous but it is disheartening. There are no two ways about it – DU’s defense and goaltending must quickly improve if the Pioneers hope to even sniff home ice in the NCHC Quarterfinals, let alone win that coveted 10th national title.

Highlights