All things considered, No. 2 Denver will take a 2-2 tie at Providence on Friday and move on.

The Pioneers (12-3-4) rallied to tie the score on Jarid Lukosevicius‘ goal midway through the third period, and Tanner Jaillet made 35 saves. DU was missing three of its top four scorers. While Troy Terry (Team USA) and Henrik Borgstrom (Finland) took shifts at the World Junior Championships in Montreal and Toronto, Dylan Gambrell (suspended) charted shots in the press box. Gambrell will return for Saturday afternoon’s game.

The teams traded goals, with Providence scoring late in the first and then Matt Marcinew taking a nice feed from fellow senior co-captain Evan Janssen to even things up. The Friars (7-6-4) pulled ahead again late in the second before DU tied it.

“I’m really happy with the way we played,” Denver coach Jim Montgomery told Bill Rogan of AM 1600 after the game. “The thing you want to do after being off three weeks is get better throughout the game, and I though we consistently did that.”

Here are three things we learned:

New places for familiar faces

With all the lineup subtractions some additions and maneuvering were in order.

The best news for the Pioneers was the return to the lineup of senior forward Emil Romig, who had missed the past eight game since sustaining a lower-body injury on Nov. 12 at North Dakota. He played on the top line with Marcinew and Lukosevicius.

Another tweak was senior defenseman Matt VanVoorhis playing at forward and picking up his first point of the season with a smart pass to Lukosevicius for his goal.

“It was a really good play to buy time and find someone coming late,” Montgomery said.

Freshman Erich Fear paired up with VanVoorhis’ usual D partner, Blake Hillman, and picked up his first NCAA point on Lukosevicius’ goal. It was just his second game. He also played Oct. 29 at Michigan State.

Shooting gallery

The 37 shots on goal were the second most the Pioneers have allowed this season, second only to Wisconsin’s 42-shot onslaught on Nov. 26.

Jaillet, as he has all season, played well and for the 11th time in 17 starts gave up two or fewer goals. The second, ironically enough, was scored by one-time DU recruit Garrett Gamez with seven seconds to go in the second period.

Weekend warriors

If it’s Friday night, there is a good chance Lukosevicius is going to score. The game marked the fourth consecutive on a Friday he’s scored a goal. Marcinew, meanwhile, broke with tradition with his goal. Three of his previous four had come on Saturdays.

The senior also was a stallion in the circle, unofficially winning 16 of 18 face-offs.

“We’re missing a lot of guys who take a lot of face-offs for us so we had to lean on him,” Montgomery said.

The last word

What can the Pioneers do better on Saturday, when Gambrell returns to the lineup?

“Just be a little crisper on breakouts. (And) on the power play they were going hard at (point man) Will Butcher. We’ll have to penetrate lower to take advantage of that.”