When No. 5 Denver plays good defense, it nearly always will win.

Friday night at St. Paul, Minn., was no exception against No. 8 Minnesota Duluth as the Pioneers took a 3-1 decision on the strength of 23 saves by Tanner Jaillet and goals from Henrik Borgstrom, Colin Staub and Adam Plant.

The Pioneers (21-9-8) improved to 19-2-4 in games in which they allow two or fewer goals. They also improved to 9-1-1 in their past 11 meetings with the Bulldogs (21-15-3), and this was just the third time in that stretch a game wasn’t decided by one goal.

It also was DU’s first semifinal win the Frozen Face-off in four years.

Borgström gave DU its first lead 8:55 into the game when he snapped a feed from Ian Mitchell past Hunter Shepard from the top of the left circle. The center’s shot went into the far, top corner through traffic.

“I thought we started the game off exactly how we wanted,” Denver coach Jim Montgomery said. But the coach added the second period was less than inspiring.

The Bulldogs evened things up 1:37 into the second when freshman all-conference defenseman Scott Perunovich got loose on a carryover power play from the closing seconds of the first period scored from between the circles.

But DU retook the lead roughly three minutes later after the line of Dylan Gambrell, Logan O’Connor and Staub turned up the pressure. An O’Connor shot ultimately hit Shepard. The puck trickled to the goalie’s left where Staub, stationed in front of the net, gathered it and tucked it inside the right post.

“My line wanted to go out and simplify it,” Staub said. “We were just trying to get pucks to the net and I was fortunate to get to the rebound and sneak it over.”

Denver, which will play St. Cloud State for the Frozen Face-off title on Saturday night, also had two big penalty kills in the second period, when Duluth outshot it 16-4.

The first was a minute-long 5 on 3 with 5:29 to go in the period, and the second – which carried over to the third period – was a five-minute major to junior defenseman Blake Hillman for checking from behind with 2:08 to go.

“I thought that was our best penalty kill of the night,” Montgomery said. “Our penalty kill effort and the five defenseman who were remaining played great hockey for us. Tanner was great for us when he had to be.”

Added captain Tariq Hammond, “The last two minutes of the second period, we did a great job killing that. We had to dig deep and get back to working hard. … Guys were making blocks, chipping pucks, there was a lot of emotion on the bench when we killed all their penalties off.”

The Pioneers, who managed just 19 shots on goal, kept the fleet Bulldogs on the outside for much of the game.

“After we killed off the 5-minute major we played smart hockey, took away time and space,” Montgomery said.

Plant scored an empty-net goal from the left point on a power play with 49 seconds left.

Notable

Freshman Griffin Mendel replaced sophomore Erich Fear (lower body) on defense. … The Pioneers’ special teams were just that for the most part, going 2 for 4 on the power play and 3 for 4 on the penalty kill.

Denver’s three stars

1. Tanner Jaillet. The senior made 24 saves in a tight game.
2. Henrik Borgström. His goal – the first of the game – was a pure goal-scorer’s goal.
3. Adam Plant. The senior scored and picked up a lot of the defensive slack when blue liner Blake Hillman was sent to the showers late in the second period.

Up next

Denver will play St. Cloud State on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. The Pioneers when 2-1-1 vs. the Huskies this season. CBS Sports Network will carry the telecast.

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