Early on Friday it appeared as if No. 3 Denver’s holiday break might have been extended another game. Coming off a tie and a loss at Providence last weekend, the Pioneers showed little of the desperation needed to get back on the positive side of the ledger against a scrappy Arizona State team that took an early lead.

The malaise only lasted one period, however, as the Pioneers blitzed the Sun Devils in the second period, scoring four goals and outshooting their guests 17-4 en route to a 5-1 victory.

“I expected us to be flat. I told the staff I was worried about this game,” DU coach Jim Montgomery said. “After the first period I talked about us getting back to our process and getting back to playing Denver hockey. I loved the way they responded. I was worried we weren’t going to have the energy to get there but we found it.”

Freshman Henrik Borgstrom scored two of the second-period goals – his ninth and 10th of the season – to retake the Pioneers’ goal-scoring from Troy Terry, who got the night off after burying a total of four shootout goals to win semifinal and championship games for Team USA at the World Junior Championships on Wednesday and Thursday night in Canada.

“It was also nice to have No. 5 (Borgstrom) back for our power play,” Montgomery said. “Once he scored that shelf on the first goal … wow he was good.”

Being good and feeling good were separate matters, said Borgstrom, who played for Finland at the WJC.

“I didn’t play so well today. My legs were killing me the whole night because I haven’t been on the ice since Tuesday when we (Finland) played Latvia in Montreal,” he said. “I’m really happy I got two goals because I didn’t score in Montreal at all.

“A win for the team is always nice and it was a good bounce back from last weekend.”

The other encouraging development was the other three goals came from seniors Matt Marcinew and Emil Romig in the second and Evan Janssen in the third. Each of the three also added an assist.

“I didn’t like (Romig’s) first period, but I liked the way he responded like the rest of the team,” Montgomery said. “It’s nice to see him get rewarded because his secondary offense in the second half last year was very important to us. Anyone feels better when they score.”

Tanner Jaillet stoped 15 of the 16 shots on goal he faced.

After the rocky start the Pioneers dominated, ultimately taking 83 shots, 47 of which were on beleaguered Arizona State goalie Ryland Pashovitz (42 saves).

Wade Murphy‘s power-play strike 9:03 into the game gave the Sun Devils a 1-0 lead, but the highlights ended there for the guests, who didn’t help their cause by giving DU nine power plays – four in each of the last two periods.

Welcome wagon

A couple of Pioneers who have flown under the radar a bit got opportunities to make their season debuts.

Redshirt junior Brad Hawkinson played his first game of the season, playing on a forward line with seniors Evan Ritt and Matt VanVoorhis. It was the third consecutive game up front for VanVoorhis, who has played defense much of his career.

And senior goaltender Greg Ogard replaced Jaillet with 4:58 to and stopped all three shots he faced. It was the second appearance of his college career.

“Hawk had a really good week of practice and he’s an incredible teammate,” Montgomery said. “Same thing with Ogie. It’s a thankless job being a third goalie. You take a lot of high shots when you go in, you get hit in the head a lot. He’s got a great attitude, he’s a wonderful young man, so is Hawk. And they’re both 3.9-4.0 students.”

American Idol

There will be a pregame ceremony honoring Terry, who helped the U.S. win just its fourth gold medal ever at the WJC. The sophomore forward from Highlands Ranch reached cult-hero status this week after his shootout goals lifted the Americans to a semifinal victory over Russia on Wednesday and a gold medal against Canada on Thursday.