Playoff hockey is a grind. Three games of it in three nights is a bigger grind.

Sunday night Denver was the grinder in Game 3 of the NCHC quarterfinals at Magness Arena, routing rival Colorado College, 6-1, to advance to the Frozen Face-off for the fifth time in its five seasons of existence.

Jarid Lukosevicius had two goals and added an assist, and linemates Henrik Borgström (goal and two assists) and Troy Terry (four assists) added seven more points to give the trio and even 10 in a game that was nowhere near as tight as the first two (a 2-0 CC win and a 3-2 DU win).

The story of the game was the Pioneers’ pressure catching up to the Tigers.

“The top line scored some high-end goals,” DU coach Jim Montgomery said. “Those two Lukosevicius goals are tic-tac-toe plays that they can make.

“The team’s collective effort of grinding them down took longer than we wanted it to but we finally got to them tonight. Every season there is a point where it could go like this or go like that.

“This year it has never transpired. We’re hoping Friday night (the 2-0 loss) was that moment that galvanizes us to play inspired hockey.”

Rather than let the Tigers’ dynamic top line of Nick Halloran, Mason Bergh and Trey Bradley run wild, as they’ve been wont to do throughout the season, and at times against DU, Montgomery frequently checked them with the line of Dylan Gambrell, Colin Staub and Logan O’Connor, and often sent out Adam Plant and Michael Davies on defense.

The plan worked so well that O’Connor got the Pioneers on the board 5:11 into the game when he finished a long stretch of pressure in the Tigers’ zone by scoring on a drive to the net.

“It was big for us,” DU captain Tariq Hammond said. “We wanted to make them defend. Use our size, use our speed down low. I think they just wore down.”

Hammond got his first goal of the season and just the fifth of his career just after a Pioneers penalty kill with 4:03 to play in the first courtesy of a nice dish from Terry.

“He got the puck down low, doing his thing in the corner and I saw an opening,” the captain said. “I just called for it and he found me and I snapped it home. It was a pretty good play.”

The Pioneers (20-9-8) blew the game open in the second period and chased Tigers goalie and Games 1 and 2 nemesis Alex Leclerc (25 saves) in the process.

Lukosevicius struck 6:33 in after Borgström controlled the puck in the left circle and passed to Terry in the right circle. Lukosevicius came steaming down the slot and Terry placed the puck on his tape for slot slapper.

“I think we’ve been playing the same way all the time, it’s just going in the net,” said Lukosevicius, who also scored the final DU goal in the third period. “It’s always nice when Nicky (Borgström) is working really hard. His skill takes over, it creates a lot of space. Troy is just Troy. Troy could find people no other. I don’t know how he does it.”

DU struck on consecutive shots with a little more than 5 minutes left in the second during a 4-on-4 situation precipitated by Ryan Barrow‘s ejection for a hit to the head during a collision with CC’s Westin Michaud and the Tigers’ subsequent too many men on the ice penalty. Borgström fired a shot off Leclerc that bounced in off of his back. CC coach Mike Haviland made a change to freshman Alec Calvaruso, and Liam Finlay greeted him with a patient move and shot to make it 5-0.

DU’s Tanner Jaillet went to the bench with 13:10 to play, having stopped all 18 shots he saw, and freshman Devin Cooley played the rest of the way, stopping 9 of 10 shots, the exception being Bergh’s tally off a nice feed from Bradley from below the goal line.

The senior goaltender said the team in front of him made his job demonstrably easier.

“Our D zone was good tonight, our D men broke pucks out, our wingers were there, our centers were underneath,” Jaillet said. “When everyone is doing the right thing it’s easy. We didn’t give them many chances, if any.”

Coming back to win a playoff series after losing the opening game had the feel of helping the Pioneers.

“We just stuck to it. We felt like we were playing a good brand of hockey, making them defend a lot,” Hammond said. “I think they wore down over the weekend. Three games in three days is pretty hard. We were rolling four lines and six D and Tanner was a rock back there.”

CC finished its season with a 15-17-5 record, a seven-game improvement over a season ago, and with a lineup that does not have a senior, bodes very well for its future and the future of this rivalry.

The Pioneers, who 20 games for the 17th season in a row, go on to the Frozen Face-off, where they have not won a semifinal game in three years. Perhaps Friday’s loss and the subsequent momentum DU built will change that trend.

“You don’t really learn much when you’re winning games,” Jaillet said. “Sometimes you get away with some bad habits, but hopefully Friday was a bit of learning lesson in some things we need to tighten up. Hopefully we can keep that up and keep going.”

Senior moment

For Denver’s four seniors, leaving Magness Arena on a victorious note was special. Doing it against CC was …

“Our parents were in the crowd. It was really special to go out on top, especially against CC,” Hammond said. “They’re our rivals. They played us hard this year. To beat them in our final game at Magness was really special.”

Added Jaillet, “You couldn’t ask for a better ending. Obviously the win is the most important thing.”

Those two as well as Rudy Junda and Plant have left an indelible impression on a program that’s in its 69th seasons.

“All four of them are special young men,” Montgomery said. “The way they’ve grown as people and as players speaks volumes about what the University of Denver does but also speaks volumes about what their families have done.

“They’re going to leave the University of Denver hockey program in a better place than when they arrived.”

More: A tribute to DU’s seniors

Denver’s three stars

1. Tariq Hammond. The senior captain gets a goal – his first of the season – and an assist in his final game at Magness Arena.
2. Troy Terry. Yeah, he’s back. As in four assists back. As in six points in the past two games back.
3. Jarid Lukosevicus. Not only is he Terry’s roommate, a fact he’s quite proud of, but he put up three points, including two goals.

Upcoming

The Pioneers will play Minnesota Duluth in a Frozen Face-off semifinal on Friday at St. Paul, Minn.