One hundred thirty-four minutes and 11 seconds. That’s how long Colorado College has held Denver off the scoreboard.

That shutout streak grew Friday with the Tigers’ 2-0 victory over the Pioneers in the opening game of a best-of-3 NCHC quarterfinal series at Magness Arena.

DU (18-9-8) had long stretches of controlling the puck but had nothing to show for it after the first two periods, a span in which it outshot CC 26-16 and generated a total 58-26 shots advantage, one that swelled to 82-38 at the game’s end.

“I think we had good pressure for pretty much the whole game. We’re just not scoring goals,” junior assistant captain Troy Terry said. “We’re clearly not being hard enough in front of their net.

“Their goalie (Alex Leclerc) is a good goalie, but we’re making it way easier on him. We’re not getting in front of him. … (We have) to do better converging on the net.”

DU coach Jim Montgomery was more succinct in his assessment: “We’ve got to screen, we’ve got to beat people off walls to get to loose rebounds. Do a better job of releasing pucks quickly.”

The Tigers (15-15-5) quickly changed the complexion of the game, taking just 5 seconds to do so, early in the third period. With freshman Ryan Barrow off for a dubious hooking call, CC won a draw to Tanner Jaillet‘s left. Defenseman Kristian Blumenschein fired a puck that the DU netminder stopped but the rebound went directly to Westin Michaud, who buried his 11th goal of the season.

Just 4:20 later, the Tigers doubled their lead when Mason Bergh collected an errant poke check and scored at 9:27. Trey Bradley had entered the DU zone along the left wall but had the puck knocked off his stick by Adam Plant. The disc was drawn to Bergh’s tape like a ball bearing to a magnet.

The Pioneers pressed, pulling Jaillet (21 saves) with 2:44 to go, but could not dent sophomore Leclerc (37 saves), who made 40 stops in a 1-0 Tigers win on Feb. 17, also at Magness.

Denver had its chances, actually several of them, on Friday, including 1:16 of carry-over power play time to start the third period.

“I thought the beginning of that power play we came out and laid an egg,” Montgomery said. “Our players have to make a statement and they didn’t. … We regrouped and made plays.”

The special teams battle clearly went to CC, despite Denver entering the contest with far superior numbers on the power play and penalty kill. The Pioneers entered the game with a power-play edge – 22.5 percent to 16.6 – and an even wider penalty-kill advantage, 85.2 percent to 76.6.

“CC was better than us on special teams, they were better than us in desperation areas,” Montgomery added. “I’m excited to see how we’re going to be with our backs against the wall. We just haven’t had that sense of urgency all year. If we don’t have it tomorrow night we really have some worries.”

The solution might be as easy as scoring the first goal, the coach added.

“If you look at the shot chart, it’s been the same thing it’s been the last three games against them,” he said. “The games that we find ways to score goals, get them out of their shell, that’s when we can push the lead.

“If we don’t the first goal, they have alligator blood (a reference to James Leighton’s poker book that was made into a movie), they just keep hanging around.”

While down, the Pioneers’ mood wasn’t despondent after the game.

“We’re just struggling to put the puck in the net against them,” captain Tariq Hammond said. “It sucks but we’ve got to find ways.

“It’s a big challenge for us. We’ve got to start with tomorrow and take care of business. It all starts with our preparation right now.”

Putting it in drive

One way the Pioneers can help themselves is heading to the Tigers’ crease with more abandon, Terry said.

“We executed everything in our game plan except getting in front of the goalie’s eyes,” he said. “It’s hard to do against that team. They do a good job blocking out in front but we’ve got to be harder.”

His coach echoed that, but noted there were some exceptions whom their teammates should emulate.

“They give you outside ice, so you’ve got to take that outside ice, but you’ve got to find a way to penetrate,” Montgomery said. “I thought Luko (Lukosevicius) and Barrow did a great job of finding ways to penetrate. We need more guys to find ways to penetrate.”

Notable

The Pioneers were the only higher seeded team to lose an NCHC opener Friday as St. Cloud beat Miami, 5-2; Minnesota Duluth blanked Western Michigan, 5-0, and North Dakota shut out Omaha, 4-0.

Denver’s three stars

1. Jarid Lukosevicius. The junior generated six shots on goal, mostly by going directly to it.
2. Ian Mitchell. The freshman found lanes and initiated chances all game, finishing with five shots.
3. Ryan Barrow. Much like Lukosevicius, the freshman went to the net with abandon and played a strong game with linemates Kohen Olischefski and Rudy Junda.

Up next

The teams meet again Saturday at 7:05 p.m. MST at Magness Arena. AM 1600 will have the broadcast, while the telecast can be seen on NCHC.tv (subscription).