#7/#2 seed DU men’s hockey (22-11-3, 17-6-1) faced off in quarterfinal action against the #7 Miami Redhawks Friday night at Magness Arena. Under the new NCHC home playoff best-of-three format, Denver hosted the opening round Redhawks. A pesky Miami team trailed by a goal late in the third period and seized all the momentum. It took a spectacular sliding cross-crease save by goaltender Johnny Hicks and an empty-netter goal by Reiger Lorenz to pull away, 2-0. A bounding ricochet shot off the boards by Eric Jamieson at 18:57 finished off the Redhawks, 3-0.
In the first period, Denver took it to the Redhawks, doubling-up the visitors on shots, 14-7. Clarke Caswell found the scoresheet at 9:21 with a feed from Cale Ashcroft, 1-0. While the Pioneers did not pepper the scoresheet, they kept Redhawk goaltender Matteo Drobac busy in the first twenty minutes.
The second period was all Denver. The Pioneers created three 2-on-1 breaks and one clean breakaway but could not solve Drobac in the frame. Denver had a 13-7 edge on shots but still clung to the narrowest of margins, heading into the third period up 1-0.
A desperate Miami team, clinging to its season, took full control in the third period. Johnny Hicks made save-after-save as Miami pinned Denver into the defensive end. While each team generated nine shots in the period, the Redhawks were much more dangerous. With two minutes to go, Miami sent a bullet pass across the crease from left to right. Hicks, covering the left pipe, streaked across the cage to the left post and stopped a point-blank strike by Miami’s Kocha Delic. Denver immediately raced down ice and Lorenz buried the empty-netter, 2-0 Denver at 18:31. A half minute later, with the goaltender pulled, Jamieson shot a long bank shot into the Redhawk goal for a final score of 3-0. While the contest appeared to be an easy win for Denver, this game was not decided until the final minutes, thanks to the outstanding play of Johnny Hicks.
Game 2 of the best-of-three series is set for Saturday at 6:00 pm MT at Magness Arena.
What happened to Epperson, Brown did not dress for tonight’s game?
Epperson is sick. Did not hear anything about Brown.
Johnny Hicks has a .961 save percentage, with 1.03 goals against average. Amazing! I thought that except for Miami’s desperation flurry late in the 3rd, the Pio’s controlled the tempo throughout.
Miami was desperate and gained a lot of offensive ice time in the 3rd. However, once again Hicks was spectacular in net. Hoping to finish off the series tonight and host a one-and done-next weekend…most likely verses Western Michigan.