Hockey, Men's Sports

Pioneers Get Weekend Sweep of Tigers, Extend NCHC Winning Streak to Four

3 Comments

It’s never easy against the Tigers. Or at least it hasn’t been since the Mike Haviland era ended. But in the end, after last night’s 2-1 overtime thriller that ended with a Boston Buckberger snipe, the #4 Denver Pioneers (8-3-1, 4-0-0 NCHC) got the job done again, finishing off the weekend sweep of the #17 Colorado College Tigers (6-5-1, 1-4-1 NCHC) with a 3-2 classic in Colorado Springs. The win effectively guarantees Denver will retain the Gold Pan for the 7th straight year, as they only need 1 point in February’s rematch to keep it at home.

Game two started fast for the Pioneers, unlike in game one. Jake Fisher opened the scoring just two and a half minutes in with a perfect wrister off the rush. It went in and out so fast that it initially looked like it hit the post, but the shot was so perfect that CC goalie Kaidan Mbereko didn’t have a prayer to save it.

But much like Friday night’s game, both teams settled in quickly and didn’t give up much defensively for the rest of the first two periods. Eric Jamieson doubled DU’s lead, though, late in the second, taking advantage of a CC player screening Mbereko and, as a result, the Tigers’ goalie never saw it, and only knew it went in thanks to DU’s celebration.

The only moment that shook DU came at the end of the first period, when junior defenseman Garrett Brown tripped over a CC player trying to avoid contact and fell head-first into the boards. After initially attempting to get up, he stayed down, mostly motionless, for a while in front of a silenced Robson Arena crowd. After a lengthy assessment by DU’s longtime trainer, Aaron Leu, Brown was stretchered off the ice and taken to an area hospital. After the game, DU head coach David Carle gave the best news of the night, indicating that Brown actually returned to the arena near the end of the game and that x-rays were negative.

But after Brown’s injury and DU’s two goals, there was still a third period to play against a desperate CC team looking to avoid the weekend sweep and keep their Gold Pan hopes alive. And Brandon Lisowsky immediately breathed life into those hopes just 49 seconds into the period on a one-timer in the slot off a pass from Gavin Lindberg. The power-play goal pulled the Tigers back to within a goal and, with how they had dominated play in the period, gave them a realistic shot at tying the game.

The difference, though, is that Denver has Boston Buckberger and Colorado College does not. A night after the junior defenseman put on his superhero cape and won the series opener with a perfect wrister in overtime, he did it again, this time on a four-on-three power play with another perfect wrister off of a feed from Clarke Caswell. Buckberger’s second goal of the weekend restored DU’s two-goal lead with just over four minutes to play. Because Wilson Bjorck scored an extra-attacker goal for CC with under two minutes left, Buckberger’s marker stood as his second game-winning goal of the weekend, putting to bed all of CC’s reasonable Gold Pan hopes.

Zooming out, the win extended the Pioneers’ overall winning streak to five and stayed unbeaten in NCHC play through four games. Not only that, but Denver has gone through a bit of a gauntlet to open conference play, sweeping Western Michigan in Kalamazoo before fighting tooth and nail to earn this home-and-home sweep of the Tigers. Call these series high-character or big growth weekends, or whatever you want to, but the Pioneers are starting to show off not only their talent but their resilience, coming back from late deficits each of the last two Fridays before starting strong and maintaining Saturday leads against desperate opponents.

The road doesn’t get much easier from here, though. Denver now travels to Tempe next weekend for a tussle with the Arizona State Sun Devils at Mullett Arena. ASU went to Grand Forks this weekend and split its series with the conference-leading North Dakota Fighting Hawks with a 5-2 loss and a 4-2 victory. ASU earned the win tonight, but was outshot 41-15 along the way. Goaltender Connor Hasley stopped 39 of UND’s 41 shots, while former Sun Devil/current Fighting Hawk Gibson Homer stopped just 11 of the 14 ASU shots he faced. In other words, the Pioneers will have their work cut out for them against another strong goaltender if they’re going to come away with their third-straight weekend sweep to open NCHC play.

Highlights

Top photo of Boston Buckberger courtesy of DU Athletics

3 thoughts on “Pioneers Get Weekend Sweep of Tigers, Extend NCHC Winning Streak to Four”

  3. Very thankful Brownie appears to have avoided the worst. That was a scary moment and the boys responded when many others would have folded. This team is showing us something special.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to AnonymousCancel reply